Nuruddin Farah - Quotes

The idea of the . . . trilogy is centered around the notion of an orphaned nation . . . I had in mind to have orphans as the central consciousness of each of the novels, and this serves as the trilogy's thematic concern," the author says. "As a general, Siad Barre [the national leader ousted during the 1991 uprising] fails the Somali nation when the national army is defeated at the hands of the combined efforts of Ethiopia, Cuba, and the then-Soviet Union. He fails a second time when he doesn't resign as soon as the defeated national army returns to base. Defeat is an implosive nature, an infestation capable of poisoning the body-politic of a people. Somalia, as a result, begins to rely on foreign aid. And Secrets is the novel in which it all explodes.
Farah, Nuruddin.

Motherhood is the off-and-on light in the darkness of night, a firefly in joyous dizziness and rejoicing, now here, now there, and everywhere. Our problem as a society is that we pay mothers only lip service, nothing else. In fact, the crisis that is coming to a head in the shape of civil strife would not be breaking on us if we'd offered women-as-mothers their due worth, respect and affection, a brightness celebrating motherhood, a monument erected in a worship of women.
Farah, Nuruddin.

The point is to create a situation where it becomes something important to the people about whom the novel is being narrated but not to the people who hear it...
Farah, Nuruddin.

A society exists only in the things it hides. Sex is the 'secret' that two people hide between them or the voyeur keeps concealed, and the things that you hide are the things that define you.
Farah, Nuruddin.

The reason why the strife has not ended is because it has no clan base. There are open and closed secrets even in Somali society. There is the open secret that the civil war in Somalia is about a conflict between various groups. (But) there is a hidden agenda ... power...
Farah, Nuruddin.

Clan doesn't matter to them, who dies doesn't matter to them. It would be a dishonesty on my part to omit this particular phase of what happened in Somalia.
Farah, Nuruddin.

Well, I see myself as a challenged writer, challenged in the sense that there are difficulties, first of all, artistically, artistic difficulties, writing about civil wars. And the reason is because civil wars usually get a lot of characters, a lot of people involved.
Farah, Nuruddin and Jeffrey Brown (Interviewer). "Somali Author Reflects on Conflict in Native Country." in: PBS. February 27, 2007.

Whenever I went to Mogadishu before, with the exception of my last visit, which was only about two months ago, I had to have bodyguards to be able to move around, to interview people, to talk to the young people who carried guns, to go see, you know, some of the warlords whom I was trying to talk to about peace.
Farah, Nuruddin and Jeffrey Brown (Interviewer). "Somali Author Reflects on Conflict in Native Country." in: PBS. February 27, 2007.

Moreover, as things stand, Somalia is not a workable proposition: no functioning schools, no job for my wife, and so on. Who knows, South Africa may turn out to be an unworkable proposition, and then we’ll rethink. In the meantime, I continue having faith in the world I know as an exile, and I will continue writing about a country in which I cannot live, in a language that’s not my first tongue—
Farah, Nuruddin and Jeffrey Brown (Interviewer). "Somali Author Reflects on Conflict in Native Country." in: PBS. February 27, 2007.

These contradictions help me reassess my position. And in a way, these discomforts help me visit in my imagination the very neurosis that is part of me, the neurosis that sharpens my focus on my subject matter, the land that I’m cut off from.
Farah, Nuruddin and Jeffrey Brown (Interviewer). "Somali Author Reflects on Conflict in Native Country." in: PBS. February 27, 2007.

This is something I come back to often in my analysis of Somali society. We become replicas of the tyrant whom we hate. We hate these warlords, these dictators, and fight against them to the point that we become dictatorial. This is what has destroyed many of the great nationalists in Africa: they became authoritarian, just like the colonialists against whom they fought. A question: What happens when you rid yourself of the monster? You become a monster.
Farah, Nuruddin and Jeffrey Brown (Interviewer). "Somali Author Reflects on Conflict in Native Country." in: PBS. February 27, 2007.

And now that I am older, the only thing I can say is that I have tried my best to keep my country alive by writing about it, and the reason is because nothing good comes out of a country until the artists of that country turn to writing about it in a truthful way.
Farah, Nuruddin and Jeffrey Brown (Interviewer). "Somali Author Reflects on Conflict in Native Country." in: PBS. February 27, 2007.

This is the role of the artist, the role of the artist who also is, well, shall we say, probably courageous, probably mad, probably terribly ambitious writer, who wants to say, 'This is what Somalia is like, and this is what I'm going to write.'
Farah, Nuruddin and Jeffrey Brown (Interviewer). "Somali Author Reflects on Conflict in Native Country." in: PBS. February 27, 2007.

Well, there are three types of Americans. I would say there is the ordinary American, who obviously needs to be told that, you know, we have a long history, as you have pointed out, we have a long tradition, and that we'd like many of them to know that the crises that's taking place in Somalia is a recent one and that someone like me is of the hope that this is a short-term crisis. But I would say that there are some history professors, literature professors, who know enough about Africa. And I'm hopeful that some of these people would comment and challenge some of the stories that are being -- you know, the way Africa is being portrayed is not always the way Africa is.
Farah, Nuruddin and Jeffrey Brown (Interviewer). "Somali Author Reflects on Conflict in Native Country." in: PBS. February 27, 2007.

And my interest in novel-writing is also to bring that out, to bring out also something else that's very, very important, at least to me, the place that women play in civil wars, in civil wars like Somalia. It is about that, writing about that, you know, in this novel and in many other novels that I have done, that I'd like to bring out this.
Farah, Nuruddin and Jeffrey Brown (Interviewer). "Somali Author Reflects on Conflict in Native Country." in: PBS. February 27, 2007.

I work in a very concentrated manner on a rewrite, working 18 hours a day, sleeping very little. This way I see where the weaknesses of the story are. I rewrite the novel as many as four or five times. I always start from the beginning and go through it without stopping, then put that draft away and three or four or six months later go back and rewrite it again more or less from memory.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

If you saw some of the earlier drafts, you would think I didn’t know how to write—and maybe I don’t. I write fast and then rewrite just as fast.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

For the first time, though, I’ve done a novel of about 570 pages and am cutting it down to 300-plus pages. Normally I work the other way around: I write a book of 100 pages and then make it much longer. What I hate most is to publish a novel very similar to my earlier ones. To make sure that that doesn’t happen, I convince myself that I’m new to writing, that I am doing it for the first time, in the hopes of producing something completely, absolutely different. To me anyway. I do that each time I write an article or a novel or a play.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

It is the method that is important. I approach writing as though it were a game that I play alone, in a room by myself. It’s not the most pleasant profession—how can it be? You lock yourself away in a room and face an empty page, daily. Writing, as a profession, is tedious, not very enjoyable. Nor is it highly appreciated, nor understood.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

I chose to write in English because Somali, my mother tongue, had no orthography in those days. Now why did I not write in Arabic, Amharic, or Italian? The way it happened, a good, solid American typewriter decided that I would write in English. It was a Royal, and I adored it. I liked hearing the sound of it when I typed. And I couldn’t find a good enough typewriter in any of the other languages that I might have written in. There is another important factor: I’ve received much of my intellectual makeup in English. Also, being a very practical person, I was aware that Amharic has far too many letters for a typewriter—it’s too complicated. Arabic was out of the question because Arabic typewriters weren’t common in our peninsula—and anyhow, Arabic was foreign to me too.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

Siad Barre is now dead and buried, but what he left behind continues to haunt us—because dictatorships always leave behind deranged minds, lots and lots of unaccounted-for evil. The Somali civil wars result from his dictatorship.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

That commitment comes from my mother, who was wiser and more articulate than my father. Unlike him—he couldn’t abide anyone who disagreed with him—my mother had the ability to listen. Listening is a faculty lacking in many people, more specifically among men and among dictators. When you listen, you arm yourself against your enemy. You must listen until the other party has finished speaking, then it is much easier to prick holes in their arguments. That’s how my mother used to do it. People don’t listen or have the patience or make the time. It is small-minded to be too arrogant or to think you know enough. I speak slowly, and usually before I finish what I’m going to say, a lot of my interlocutors lose interest in what I am saying, and then—
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

One of the things I’ve said to many of the politicians and the warlords is to listen to what the other guys are saying. If you listen, you won’t need to pull out a gun. In short, let us take the gun out of Somali politics, even if someone says things that you don’t like. Just look at them after they’ve finished; don’t say anything. Listen some more, and they will have changed their mind.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

The civil war, and how people live through a civil war; how they express themselves, gather their broken selves with a view to mending their damaged memories and cure their illnesses.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

There’s a cliché, isn’t there, that one never goes back to what one has left, as things will have changed. My writing has benefited in the six or seven years since I’ve been able to go back, becoming sharper where before it may have been dull around the edges. But I have lost the power to philosophize and mythologize.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

In my travels, I share with the Somalis in the diaspora my views about my visits to Somalia. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis are scattered throughout Europe and North America. And even though they have no intention of returning, they’ve brought the trauma of displacement, with which they are burdened.
Farah, Nuruddin and Kwame Anthony Appiah (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah." in: Bomb Magazine. Issue 87, Spring 2004.

I decided, sitting in a friend's apartment in Rome, if I couldn't go back home then I would systematically make the rest of Africa my country.
Farah, Nuruddin and Stephen Gray (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah: The Novelist and the Nomad; Interview." in: NomadNet. August 23, 1999.

Well, real Somali nomads have a purpose--needing to graze their cows. But I'm maybe just a mover-about, wanting to experience each cultural unit of my continent.
Farah, Nuruddin and Stephen Gray (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah: The Novelist and the Nomad; Interview." in: NomadNet. August 23, 1999.

Now, let me tell you, when it came to teaching other people's work, I did it; but during seminars about my own novel, I would always take a leave of absence!
Farah, Nuruddin and Stephen Gray (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah: The Novelist and the Nomad; Interview." in: NomadNet. August 23, 1999.

...the American middle-class intellectual was more or less waiting for the unspoken-for Somali, the one who tells them the things that are private.
Farah, Nuruddin and Stephen Gray (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah: The Novelist and the Nomad; Interview." in: NomadNet. August 23, 1999.

But you know, each single one of my books has made its own friends. I'm usually very lucky in not having to bother about looking after the books. They can look after themselves.
Farah, Nuruddin and Stephen Gray (Interviewer). "Nuruddin Farah: The Novelist and the Nomad; Interview." in: NomadNet. August 23, 1999.

I was accused of ingratitude. American friends I'd known from 25 years wouldn't talk to me, because I'd pointed out the obscenity of that photo-opportunity.
Farah, Nuruddin and Maya Jagi. "Bitter crumbs and sour milk -- a nation betrayed." in: The Guardian. April 18, 1993.

The Gambians stopped taking an interest in their own locally-grown broken rice, and began to demand quality rice from abroad. It took away their self-confidence and self-reliance, making Gambia wholly dependent on aid. The same story is true elsewhere in Africa.
Farah, Nuruddin and Maya Jagi. "Bitter crumbs and sour milk -- a nation betrayed." in: The Guardian. April 18, 1993.

The point is that emergencies are strictly one-off affairs; you don't keep coming back for more, like African governments.
Farah, Nuruddin and Maya Jagi. "Bitter crumbs and sour milk -- a nation betrayed." in: The Guardian. April 18, 1993.

I used to have daily visits from a muse like Aladdin's jinn. But for months after being proved right in my predictions, not a single idea came to me. I blame myself for visiting a bad omen on my conscience.
Farah, Nuruddin and Maya Jagi. "Bitter crumbs and sour milk -- a nation betrayed." in: The Guardian. April 18, 1993.

It's show time. The Americans are giving their end-of-the-year extravaganza. The Somalis are impressed with this show of force. Those viewing the show on TV are pleased with the performance so far. Come to think of it, so are the "warriors," in the main marines spearheading the feed-the-starving protect-the-helpless American-led force: "warriors" who pose for a photo opportunity -- well-fed youths, faces wide with self-complacency, features fat with gourmet treats prepared in ovens offshore and flown in helicopters equipped with microwave facilities, while the Somalis starve!
Farah, Nuruddin. "Praise the Marines? I suppose so." in: NomadNet. (Originally published: The NY Times). December 28, 1992.

It's a shame, though, that it fell to the United States to take the lead by sending in the marines, and for the French and the Canadians to make contributions in order to salvage the so far unsavaged. Shame on you, Africa; shame on the Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity; shame on your heads of state. I speak as a pan-Africanist!
Farah, Nuruddin. "Praise the Marines? I suppose so." in: NomadNet. (Originally published: The NY Times). December 28, 1992.

Shall we say, "Well done, America!" and be done with the matter?
Farah, Nuruddin. "Praise the Marines? I suppose so." in: NomadNet. (Originally published: The NY Times). December 28, 1992.

Overwhelmed as I am with the magnitude of the crisis, I say this: Somalia is an open sore, a wound gaping as wide as a gate on broken hinges, a mouth toothless and without a tongue, ugly in the extreme, cavernous, tomblike.
Farah, Nuruddin. "Praise the Marines? I suppose so." in: NomadNet. (Originally published: The NY Times). December 28, 1992.

I'm coming round to the wisdom to be courteous to those who have been generous, a wisdom cautioning me to wait and see how things develop on the ground before piping the praise of the marines who are performing sanctimonious acts of Christian kindness (Christian in the secondary, secular meaning of the term), who, days after landing with only a tiny force, have made much difference to the balance of power among the thugs -- the marines who have executed their jobs well, jobs as clean as anesthesia.
Farah, Nuruddin. "Praise the Marines? I suppose so." in: NomadNet. (Originally published: The NY Times). December 28, 1992.

Wisdom informs me that the marines are not in Somalia to do a plumbing job; they are there risking their lives to confront the notorious marauders of Mogadishu, Kismayu and Baidoa, wicked men who tuck into a cheek the stimulant khat and are on wings, who get high on other drugs, who are stone-deaf to death, to the muezzin's preaching of Islamic morality, to the traditional notions of clanly co-existence.
Farah, Nuruddin. "Praise the Marines? I suppose so." in: NomadNet. (Originally published: The NY Times). December 28, 1992.

It is show time now, and December is here, so turn on your CNN, ABC, BBC and Voice of America, kick off your shoes, put up your feet and relax.
Farah, Nuruddin. "Praise the Marines? I suppose so." in: NomadNet. (Originally published: The NY Times). December 28, 1992.