Nuruddin Farah won honors, and readers, around the world, for his novel “Secrets.”
It is set in Somalia in East Africa in the early 90s: there are wild elephants and vervet monkeys in the real and mythic background; there is a brutal showdown of clan warlords just waiting to break out; but in the foreseeable future there is also a global economy and world culture coming, strong enough to overwhelm, maybe pave over the many layers of a Somalian consciousness.
Those layers include pagan magic and juju powers out of Somali folklore, also Islamic traditions of belief and worship, also modern memories of Italy’s colonial years in Africa. “Secrets” is the story of one young high-tech businessman’s search for his origins, to find whether his father really fathered him.
But it reads too like a fable of African identity-like Nuruddin Farah’s own inquiry into how the puzzles, pleasures and perspectives of his own past will be preserved.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Nuruddin Farah