SomaliNet Forums

This guy is a PhD candidate and this book has had some really good reviews. How many of you will buy and read it? Nurrudiin Faarax's monopoly on Somali based literature might be over when this guy and Nadifa Mohammed (Black Mamba Boy) write more books.

I've read one book written by Nurrudin Farah and that book is 'From a crooked rib'. I like the concept he's using i.e women's emancipation etc but sometimes it becomes too much. You get the sense of him trying to impress European literary critics in order to get the nobel prize in literature instead of writing a book thats well balanced telling the story of Somali women or the current state Somalia is in or whatever the book is about without exaggerating things. I normally read books written by Camus, Sartre and Dostojevskij but I will definitely buy Guban. We got to support our Somali brothers and sisters.

Most people I know didnt like Crooked Rib. Everyone preferred 'Blood in the Sun' trilogy (Maps, Gifts, Secrets). I'll support Ega as well, we need to support them because my worst nightmare is a Somalia that only white people write about. I met this cadaan lady once (she is a famous author on Africa) and when she was asked why the book she wrote was written by her and not the man who gave her literally the entire story (it was a political book) she replied 'why dont Africans ever write?' I wanted to kill her.

gedo_gurl wrote:Most people I know didnt like Crooked Rib. Everyone preferred 'Blood in the Sun' trilogy (Maps, Gifts, Secrets). I'll support Ega as well, we need to support them because my worst nightmare is a Somalia that only white people write about. I met this cadaan lady once (she is a famous author on Africa) and when she was asked why the book she wrote was written by her and not the man who gave her literally the entire story (it was a political book) she replied 'why dont Africans ever write?' I wanted to kill her.

There's an African proverb that goes “Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter”. Thats exactly the case with Somalia or Africa in general. When Europeans are writing about Somalia wether its history, politics etc. They always seem to add their perspective to the text, which makes what they've written biased.