Nuruddin Farah

Nuruddin Farah نور الدين فرح
Farah speaking at South High School in Minneapolis in 2010.
Born	Nuuradiin Faarax November 24, 1945 (1945-11-24) (age 65) Baidoa, Somalia
Occupation	novelist, essayist, professor
Nationality	Somalia
Ethnicity	Somali
Alma mater	Panjab University
Subjects	nationalism, colonialism, feminism
Notable work(s)	From a Crooked Rib, Maps, Gifts, Secrets
Notable award(s)	Kurt Tucholsky Prize, Lettre Ulysses Award, Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Premio Cavour, St. Malo Literature Festival Prize
Spouse(s)	Chitra Muliyil (1970-72) Amina Mama (1992-present)
Children	Koschin (born 1971) Abyan (born 1993) Kaahiye (born 1995)

Nuruddin Farah (Somali: Nuuradiin Faarax, Arabic: نور الدين فرح‎) (born November 24, 1945) is a prominent Somali novelist.

Early years

Born in Baidoa, Somalia, Farah is the son of a merchant father and a poet mother. As a child, he attended school at Kallafo in the Ogaden, and studied English, Arabic, and Amharic. In 1963, three years after Somalia's independence, Farah was forced to flee the Ogaden following serious border conflicts. For several years thereafter, he pursued a degree in philosophy, literature and sociology at Panjab University in Chandigarh, India.

Literary career

Nuruddin Farah in London, England in 1984.

After releasing an early short story in his native Somali language, Farah shifted to writing in English while still attending university in India. His first novel, From a Crooked Rib (1970), told the story of a nomad girl who flees from an arranged marriage to a much older man. The novel earned him mild but international acclaim. On a tour of Europe following the publication of A Naked Needle (1976), Farah was warned that the Somali government planned to arrest him over its contents. Rather than return and face imprisonment, Farah began a self-imposed exile that would last for twenty-two years, teaching in the United States, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Sudan, India and Nigeria. In 1990, he received a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service and moved to Berlin. In 1996, he visited Somalia for the first time in more than twenty years. He lives with his second wife and two children in Cape Town.^[1]

Farah describes his purpose for writing as an attempt "to keep my country alive by writing about it". His trilogies of novels Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship (1980–1983) and Blood in the Sun (1986–1999) form the core of his work. Though Variations was well-received in a number of countries, Farah's reputation was cemented by his most famous novel, Maps (1986), the first part of his Blood in the Sun trilogy. Maps, which is set during the Ogaden conflict of 1977, employs the innovative technique of second-person narration for exploring questions of cultural identity in a post-independence world. He followed the novel with Gifts (1993) and Secrets (1998), both of which earned awards.

Awards

Farah has garnered acclaim as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world. Having published many short stories, novels and essays, his prose has earned him, among other accolades, the Premio Cavour in Italy, the Kurt Tucholsky Prize in Sweden, the Lettre Ulysses Award in Berlin, and in 1998, the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In the same year, the French edition of his novel Gifts also won the St. Malo Literature Festival’s prize.^[2] In addition, Farah is a perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, which is one of the only major literary prizes he has yet to win.^[3]

Works

• Why Die So Soon? (1965, novella)
• A Dagger in a Vacuum (1965, play)
• From a Crooked Rib (1970), ISBN 0-435-90080-3
• A Naked Needle (1976), ISBN 0-435-90184-2
• Variations on the Theme of An African Dictatorship (trilogy)
  • Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), ISBN 1-55597-159-8
  • Sardines (1981), ISBN 1-55597-161-X
  • Close Sesame (1983), ISBN 1-55597-162-8
• Blood in the Sun (trilogy)
  • Maps (1986), ISBN 0-14-029643-3
  • Gifts (1993), ISBN 1-55970-484-5
  • Secrets (1998), ISBN 1559704276
• Territories (2000), ISBN 2-84261-190-X
• Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora (2000), ISBN 0-304-70701-5
• Trilogy
  • Links, (2004) ISBN 1-57322-265-8
  • Knots, (2007) ISBN 1594489246

Notes

1. ^ "Nuruddin Farah". The Penguin Speaker's Bureau. Penguin Group. http://penguinspeakersbureau.com/speaker/210. 
2. ^ Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage - Nuruddin Farah
3. ^ Michael Eldridge, The Novels of Nuruddin Farah (review), Africa Today - Volume 52, Number 1, Fall 2005, pp. 141-143

References

• Alden, Patricia & Tremain, Louis. "Nuruddin Farah." Twayne's world authors series v.876. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999.
• Wright, Derek. "The Novels of Nuruddin Farah." Bayreuth African Studies Vol 32, 2nd edition, Bayreuth: 200421:34
• Lettre Ulysses Award - Nuruddin Farah

External links

• Profile at Pegasos
• Nuruddin Farah archive

Persondata
Name	Farah, Nurruddin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	November 24, 1945
Place of birth	Baidoa, Somalia
Date of death
Place of death