| Biographical detail : | The Somalian writer and the first English language-author of his country.
Farah’s books debate the great themes – people versus the state, clan versus nationality, family versus the individual – the sort of writing that stirs heart and mind. His ninth novel, ‘Links’, begins and ends with a murder – “the labyrinthine politics” of Somalia. ‘Links’ is a roughhewn work of art, but art it surely is.
Since Somalia was an Italian colony, later occupied by the British, Farah learnt English as well as Italian. He wrote his first novel, From a Crooked Rib in 1970 at Chandigarh, India, where he had come to study and also Naked Needle, Sweet and sour milk, Sardines and Close Sesame |
