MAPS

by Nuruddin Farah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1987

In Sardines (1983), Farah--a Somalia-born writer/professor--offered a dense, demanding close-up of a halt-dozen intellectual Somali women. Here, in a somewhat less ambitious yet frequently opaque (and sometimes belabored) sociopolitical character study, he scrutinizes the childhood and adolescence of young Somali man Askar--an orphan who is raised first by an Ethiopian foster-mother, then by his cosmopolitan Somali kinfolk. In narration that shifts regularly (and often annoyingly) from second, person to first-person to third-person, we learn that Askar's father--a Somali freedom-fighter in the rebellion of the Ogaden province against Ethiopian rule--died in prison a few months before Askar's birth; that his mother died virtually in childbirth; and that Askar was taken in by kindly, earthy Misra. (""She was the one that took you away from 'yourself? as it were, she was the one who took you back into the world-of-the-womb and of innocence, and washed you clean in the water of a new life. . ."") Askar recalls his intense one-ness with Misra, his jealousy of her lovers (one of whom was a Koranic priest), the changes in their relationship that followed his circumcision at age five. (""I held the citizenship of the land of pain, I was issued with its passport. . ."") He remembers his parting from Misra at age seven, when he went to Somalia's capital city to live with his worldly sensitive, childless uncle and aunt: at first homesick and shy, the eerily adult little boy eventually becomes comfortable in this odd household, loving the city of Mogadiscio. But now, at 18, Askar must decide whether to join the Western Somali Liberation Front, returning to fight in the Ogaden--or whether to choose an academic career. And this dilemma is complicated by the arrival in Mogadiscio of Misra, a fugitive from the Ogaden--having been accused of betraying the Somali freedom-fighters to her Ethiopian-soldier lover. Should Askar befriend Misra (who may be ill with breast cancer), reopen his heart to her? Is she guilty of betrayal--or, falsely accused, guilty only of being a foreigner? ""I had to betray either Misra, who had been like a mother to me, or my mother country."" Farah weighs down this potentially forceful scenario with stylistic and thematic layerings of every kind: the fractured, you/I/he, past/present narration; folktale-ish descriptions of Askar's dreams and fantasies; verbose imagery involving blood, water, and sky; convoluted, heavy-handed musings on sexual identity, the politics of language, and the ""truth"" of maps. So the result, though intermittently fascinating in its evocation of the Somali culture and its identity crisis, is for a very limited audience only: readers keenly interested enough in the issues involved to persevere through the verbal and conceptual thickets.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1987

ISBN: 0140296433

Page Count: -

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION