Nuruddin Farah Analysis
Insight into Somalia's Woes Through Nuruddin Farah's "Maps"
Malak El Saghir Mahmoud Hijazi
Eng- Master 1- Research
File number: 38651
Dr. Lutfi Hmadi
March 2017
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to examine the struggle of personal and political identity, which occurs within discourses that coming-of-age novels provide.
Nuruddin Farah’s Maps explore the passage of young protagonist through themes of loyalty, identity, and place. The novel is a stark reminder that some questions have no answers; questions about men and women and how they interact with truth.
The young protagonist of the novel struggles to exist and to define an identity passing through a personal coming-of-age process in a postcolonial land. …show more content…
He was expelled for his political views and continues to live in exile. He developed an extraordinary work while in exile. Farah has stated: “For me distance distills, ideas become clearer and are worth pursuing. I like to place an intellectual and a physical distance between myself and my writing...To write a ‘truly inspired work of fiction’ about Somalia, I had to leave it” (Riggan 701). He also felt, “it was salutary for a writer to be away from home, away from the pressures of family and friends, who would counsel caution and advise you not to stick out your neck unnecessarily” (Farah, “Country” 4). Farah in his novel Maps confirms with his young protagonist as he goes through struggles for identity that parallel his country ; struggles for identity after independence from the Western colonial powers that had dominated them. The question of identity in the novel is dense because it relies upon the divided loyalties. The growth of postcolonial national identity is as puzzling to the nation-states involved as the struggle for personal identity is to these children. He was born in circumstances that over cast his …show more content…
He view his vision of a Somali nation expands from Djibouti to parts of Kenya to the Ogaden that it has its own language, culture and identity. Also he saw them as raiders dominated their written language on the language of the country they are expanded over. Farah discusses through Askar and his journey in searching for his identity, the reality of this identity. It is the identity of whole somlian. He shows the war between Somalia and Ethiopia and the tragedy that follows; massacres, displacement, murder and rape of
Malak El Saghir Mahmoud Hijazi
Eng- Master 1- Research
File number: 38651
Dr. Lutfi Hmadi
March 2017
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to examine the struggle of personal and political identity, which occurs within discourses that coming-of-age novels provide.
Nuruddin Farah’s Maps explore the passage of young protagonist through themes of loyalty, identity, and place. The novel is a stark reminder that some questions have no answers; questions about men and women and how they interact with truth.
The young protagonist of the novel struggles to exist and to define an identity passing through a personal coming-of-age process in a postcolonial land. …show more content…
He was expelled for his political views and continues to live in exile. He developed an extraordinary work while in exile. Farah has stated: “For me distance distills, ideas become clearer and are worth pursuing. I like to place an intellectual and a physical distance between myself and my writing...To write a ‘truly inspired work of fiction’ about Somalia, I had to leave it” (Riggan 701). He also felt, “it was salutary for a writer to be away from home, away from the pressures of family and friends, who would counsel caution and advise you not to stick out your neck unnecessarily” (Farah, “Country” 4). Farah in his novel Maps confirms with his young protagonist as he goes through struggles for identity that parallel his country ; struggles for identity after independence from the Western colonial powers that had dominated them. The question of identity in the novel is dense because it relies upon the divided loyalties. The growth of postcolonial national identity is as puzzling to the nation-states involved as the struggle for personal identity is to these children. He was born in circumstances that over cast his …show more content…
He view his vision of a Somali nation expands from Djibouti to parts of Kenya to the Ogaden that it has its own language, culture and identity. Also he saw them as raiders dominated their written language on the language of the country they are expanded over. Farah discusses through Askar and his journey in searching for his identity, the reality of this identity. It is the identity of whole somlian. He shows the war between Somalia and Ethiopia and the tragedy that follows; massacres, displacement, murder and rape of