Quick Facts
Biography
Nuruddin Farah (Somali: Nuuradiin Faarax, Arabic: نورالدين فارح) (born 24 November 1945) is a Somali novelist. He has also written plays both for stage and radio, as well as short stories and essays. Since leaving Somalia in the 1970s he has lived and taught in numerous countries, including the United States, England, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Sudan, India, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa.
Farah has garnered acclaim as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world, his prose having earned him accolades including 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 won the St Malo Literature Festival’s prize. In addition, Farah is a perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Personal life
Farah was born in 1945 in Baidoa, in Italian Somaliland. His father Hassan Farah was a merchant and his mother Aleeli (nėe Faduma) an oral poet. Farah was the fourth eldest boy in a large family. He hails from the Ogaden Darod clan.
As a child, Farah frequented schools in Somalia and adjacent Ethiopia, attending classes in Kallafo in the Ogaden. He studied English, Arabic and Amharic. In 1963, three years after Somalia's independence, he was forced to flee the Ogaden following serious border conflicts.
From 1966 to 1970, he pursued a degree in philosophy, literature and sociology at Panjab University in Chandigarh, India, where he met his first wife, Chitra Muliyil Farah, with whom he had a son (the marriage later ended in divorce). Farah subsequently went to England, attending London University (1974–75) and studying for a master's degree in theatre at Essex University (1975–76). His mother died in 1990, and in 1992 he married British-Nigerian academic Amina Mama and they have a son and a daughter.
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 20 years.
Farah's sister Basra Farah Hassan, a diplomat, was killed in a bombing in January 2014 while working with the United Nations in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Farah currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Cape Town, South Africa.
Literary career
After releasing an early short story in his native Somali language, Farah shifted to writing in English while still attending university in India. His books have been translated into 17 languages.
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. Published by Heinemann Educational Books (HEB) in their African Writers Series, the novel earned him mild but international acclaim. On a tour of Europe following the publication of A Naked Needle (HEB, 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 22 years, teaching in the United States, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Sudan, India and Nigeria.
Farah describes his purpose for writing as an attempt "to keep my country alive by writing about it", and for Nadine Gordimer he was one of the continent's "true interpreters". His trilogies of novels - "Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship" (1980–83) and "Blood in the Sun" (1986–99) form the core of his work. First published by Allison and Busby, "Variations" included Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), Sardine (1981) and Close Sesame (1983), and 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. Farah followed this with Gifts (1993) and Secrets (1998), both of which earned awards. His most recent trilogy comprises Links (2004), Knots (2007) and Crossbones (2011). His latest novel Hiding in Plain Sight was published in 2014.
Farah is also a playwright, whose plays include work for the stage —A Dagger in Vacuum (produced Mogadiscio, 1970), The Offering (produced Colchester, Essex, 1975), Yussuf and His Brothers (produced Jos, Nigeria, 1982) — and for radio: Tartar Delight, 1980 (Germany) and A Spread of Butter.
Besides literature, Farah is an important scholar within Somali Studies. He serves on the International Advisory Board of Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies, published by Macalester College.
Selected awards and honours
- 1974–76: UNESCO fellowship
- 1980: English-Speaking Union Literary Award (for Sweet and Sour Milk)
- 1990: Corman Artists fellowship
- 1991: Kurt Tucholsky Prize, Stockholm, Sweden
- 1993: Best Novel Award, Zimbabwe (for Gifts)
- 1994: Premio Cavour, Italy (for Italian edition of Close Sesame)
- 1998: Neustadt International Prize for Literature
- 1998: St Malo Literary Festival award (for French edition of Gifts)