Synopses & Reviews
A gripping new novel from today's "most important African novelist" (The New York Times Book Review)
A dozen years after his last visit, Jeebleh returns to his beloved Mogadiscio to see old friends. He is accompanied by his son-in-law, Malik, a journalist intent on covering the region's ongoing turmoil. What greets them at first is not the chaos Jeebleh remembers, however, but an eerie calm enforced by ubiquitous white-robed figures bearing whips.
Meanwhile, Malik's brother, Ahl, has arrived in Puntland, the region notorious as a pirates' base. Ahl is searching for his stepson, Taxliil, who has vanished from Minneapolis, apparently recruited by an imam allied to Somalia's rising religious insurgency. The brothers' efforts draw them closer to Taxliil and deeper into the fabric of the country, even as Somalis brace themselves for an Ethiopian invasion. Jeebleh leaves Mogadiscio only a few hours before the borders are breached and raids descend from land and sea. As the uneasy quiet shatters and the city turns into a battle zone, the brothers experience firsthand the derailments of war.
Completing the trilogy that began with Links and Knots, Crossbones is a fascinating look at individuals caught in the maw of zealotry, profiteering, and political conflict, by one of our most highly acclaimed international writers.
Review
"A masterful tale by one of Africa's most distinguished writers." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Review
"[D]reamlike but compelling....[Farah] has dispensed with a translator, but for the American reader his novel is translation of a different kind, not of words but of a world: one we live in without quite, or not yet, hearing." Richard Eder, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"[T]o enter this novel, we must become something like Jeebleh, repress our need for explanations, and resign ourselves to a murky cloud of suggestions and fears, a land simultaneously distinct and amorphous. This is the slightly abstract, slightly surreal territory where several Nobel laureates hang out, writers like Singer, Márquez, and Saramago, and it's no coincidence that Farah has been held up in their company." Ron Charles, Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)
Synopsis
From the world-class novelist: A Somali man who has spent the last twenty years raising his family in the U.S. returns year later to his native Mogadiscio.
Synopsis
Jeebleh is returning to Mogadiscio from New York for the first time in twenty years. It is not a nostalgia trip for him Jeebleh's last residence here was a jail cell. And who could feel nostalgic for a city like this? The U.S. troops have recently come and gone, and the decimated city is ruled by clan warlords and patrolled by qaat-chewing gangs who shoot civilians to relieve their adolescent boredom. Jeebleh is returning to visit his mother's grave and to settle her outstanding accounts but more urgently, the youngest member of his oldest friend's family has been abducted. Though they have not seen each other in two decades, Jeebleh knows from their childhood that his friend a virtual brother, who remained in Somalia when Jeebleh left will need Jeebleh to step in. Jeebleh is determined to cut through the swirling violence and corruption to rescue the little girl and, perhaps, a piece of his own identity. Gripping, provocative, and revelatory, Links is the finest work yet from Farah, a novel that will secure his place in the international literary firmament and stand as a classic of modern world literature.
Synopsis
Gripping, provocative, and revelatory, Links is a novel that will stand as a classic of modern world literature. Jeebleh is returning to Mogadiscio, Somalia, for the first time in twenty years. But this is not a nostalgia tripandmdash;his last residence there was a jail cell. And who could feel nostalgic for a city like this? U.S. troops have come and gone, and the decimated city is ruled by clan warlords and patrolled by qaat-chewing gangs who shoot civilians to relieve their adolescent boredom. Diverted in his pilgrimage to visit his motherandrsquo;s grave, Jeebleh is asked to investigate the abduction of the young daughter of one of his closest friendandrsquo;s family. But he learns quickly that any act in this city, particularly an act of justice, is much more complicated than he might have imagined.
Synopsis
A bold new novel that augments a body of work worthy of a Nobel Prize” (Kirkus Reviews), from the internationally acclaimed author of Crossbones
Nuruddin Farahthe most important African novelist to emerge in the past twenty-five years” (The New York Review of Books)returns with a provocative, unforgettable tale about family, freedom, and loyalty. A departure in theme and setting, Hiding in Plain Sight is a profound exploration of the tensions between liberty and obligation, the ways in which gender and sexual orientation define us, and the unintended consequences of the secrets we keep.
When Bella, a fashion photographer living in Rome, learns of her beloved half-brothers murder, she travels to Nairobi to care for her niece and nephew. But when their mother resurfaces, reasserting her maternal rights and bringing with her a gale of chaos and confusion that mirrors the deepening political instability in the region, Bella must decide how far she will go to obey the call of sisterly responsibility.
About the Author
Nuruddin Farah is the author of eleven novels, most recently Links and Knots, in the trilogy completed by Crossbones. His novels have been translated into seventeen languages and he has won numerous awards, including the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, "widely regarded as the most prestigious international literary award after the Nobel" (The New York Times). His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, and Granta, both of which excerpted Crossbones. Born in Baidoa, Somalia, Farah divides his time between Cape Town, South Africa, and Minneapolis, where he holds a chair at the University of Minnesota.