Nuruddin Farah

Nuruddin Farah (Somalia, 1945) is regarded by many as the most important African candidate for the Nobel Prize for literature. Although he left Somalia in 1970, his native country occupies center stage in all his books. Except for the lengthy dictatorship and bloody civil war which destroyed the country, he writes about women’s rights, the relationship between Islam and pre-Islamic traditions. The core of his oeuvre is formed by his novel trilogies: ‘Variations on the theme of an African Dictatorship’, consisting of Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), Sardines (1981) and Close Sesame (1982); and ‘Blood in the Sun’, formed by Maps (86), Gifts (1990) and Secrets (1998). Right now he is working on the final part of his third trilogy, already consisting of Links (2007) and Knots (2008). In his recent work exiles return to a warstricken Mogadishu. Farah also wrote a non-fiction book with testimonies of Somali refugees: Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora (2000). In 1998 he was recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. His work has been translated in seventeen languages and seven of his books have appeared in Dutch, among others Secrets and Maps. The translation of Links will appear in 2009. Farah lives in Cape Town, South Africa.