Maps

Startling . . . passionate. Farah’s masterpiece

A remarkable novel . . . ambitious, original, informative

Nuruddin Farah is one of Africa's best writers

Nuruddin Farah is the author of thirteen novels, which have been translated into more than twenty languages and won numerous awards, including the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Born in Baidoa, Somalia, he went into exile in 1976, after he was threatened with arrest for the publication of his satirical novel A Naked Needle. In exile, Farah began a lifelong literary pursuit: 'to keep my country alive by writing about it.' He now lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

Against the shifting political landscape of the Ogaden plateau, between the Ethiopian Highlands and the Somali border, Askar is born in the midst of turmoil. After his freedom fighter father is killed and his mother dies in childbirth, Askar is raised by Misra, a loving older woman who develops a mysterious, protective bond with the boy. As he struggles to understand where he comes from, and where his loyalties lie, threads of family, nation, and the self become impossible to untangle. 
 
First published in 1986 and dubbed Nuruddin Farah’s masterpiece, Maps is both an intimate coming-of-age tale and a profound meditation on the borders that shape us.

Nuruddin Farah

'God created woman from a crooked rib and anyone who trieth to straighten it, breaketh it' Traditional Somali Proverb 
 
Ebla lives a nomadic life in rural Somalia; an orphaned teenager raised within the strictures of patriarchy. But when her grandfather tries to force her into marriage with a much older man, she flees to Mogadishu, in search of freedom, dignity and self-possession. There, she slips into a spiral of dependence, poverty and violence, fighting to retain her identity in the face of chauvinism and stifling tradition, determined to claim her own life in a world set against her. 
 
First published in 1970, From a Crooked Rib is the unforgettable debut that announced the arrival of one of the most original voices in world literature. Fiercely political and deeply humane, it remains a daring exploration of gender, power, and resistance.

From a Crooked Rib

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