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Summary
Summary
A gripping new novel from today's "most important African novelist". ( The New York Times Review of Books ), the internationally acclaimed author of North of Dawn
A dozen years after his last visit, Jeebleh returns to his beloved Mogadiscio to see old friends. He is accompanied by his son-in-law, Malik, a journalist intent on covering the region's ongoing turmoil. What greets them at first is not the chaos Jeebleh remembers, however, but an eerie calm enforced by ubiquitous white-robed figures bearing whips.
Meanwhile, Malik's brother, Ahl, has arrived in Puntland, the region notorious as a pirates' base. Ahl is searching for his stepson, Taxliil, who has vanished from Minneapolis, apparently recruited by an imam allied to Somalia's rising religious insurgency. The brothers' efforts draw them closer to Taxliil and deeper into the fabric of the country, even as Somalis brace themselves for an Ethiopian invasion. Jeebleh leaves Mogadiscio only a few hours before the borders are breached and raids descend from land and sea. As the uneasy quiet shatters and the city turns into a battle zone, the brothers experience firsthand the derailments of war.
Completing the trilogy that began with Links and Knots , Crossbones is a fascinating look at individuals caught in the maw of zealotry, profiteering, and political conflict, by one of our most highly acclaimed international writers.
Author Notes
Nurudin Farah is the author of nine novels, including From a Crooked Rib , Links and his Blood in the Sun trilogy: Maps , Gifts , and Secrets . His novels have been translated into seventeen languages and have won numerous awards. Farah was named the 1998 laureate of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, "widely regarded as the most prestigious international literary award after the Nobel" ( The New York Times ). Born in Baidoa, Somalia, he now lives in Cape Town, South Africa, with his wife and their children.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Somali-born Farah (Knots) completes his Past Imperfect trilogy with an insightful portrait of his African country imploding so furiously that neither well-educated citizens nor well-meaning exiles who return can alter the trajectory. Farah's novel centers on the visit to Mogadiscio of Jeebleh, a Somali-born Minnesota literature professor traveling with his journalist son-in-law, Malik. Ahl, Malik's older brother, comes too, fearing he'll find his runaway stepson in a region known for youthful pirates. Giving a human dimension to the tragedy of a failed nation-state, Farah interweaves points of view, the most chilling being that of a boy called YoungThing sent on a murderous mission by the Shabaab, one of several political-religious factions jockeying for control. Though YoungThing gets lost along the way, he doggedly persists, determined to complete his mission. Layer by layer, the novel digs into its sad subject as Malik conducts interviews, Ahl hunts rumors, and Jeebleh reconnects with old friends. Farah has become the voice of the Somalian diaspora, telling stories of political, religious, and family conflict without sentimentality. He sheds light on current events, but is a portraitist, not a polemicist. He shows independent women and well-meaning Americans caught in Somalia's implacable cycle of tyranny, destruction, and revenge. Like Conrad, Farah proves a master of his adopted language, enhancing his narratives with proverbs and instances of institutionalized irrationality. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Renowned Somali writer Farah concludes the Past Imperfect trilogy (Links, 2004; Knots, 2007) with a fiercely critical, ruefully funny, profoundly compassionate portrait of his blasted homeland. The Union of Islamic Courts is tyrannizing Mogadiscio via Sharia, while warlords, pirates, and Shabaab terrorists feud and conspire. Political dissident Jeebleh has returned to the city after a 10-year absence, accompanied by his New York-based son-in-law, Malik, a journalist intent on writing about his first journey to his ancestral land. Jeebleh is anxious to provide Malik with trustworthy contacts, since journalists are often brutally attacked. Malik's brother, Ahl, is also in Somalia, searching for his stepson, who disappeared from their Minnesota home, most likely recruited by Shabaab. With a trip-wire plot propelled by Malik's and Ahl's dangerous and noble quests and highly sympathetic characters, including Cambara, a woman of uncommon courage, Farah humanizes the dire complexities inherent to a place fractured by perpetual violence, corruption, outside exploitation, bone-deep poverty, and fanaticism. A writer of charm, wit, conscience, and penetrating vision, Farah is a commanding and essential global writer.--Seaman, Donn. Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
SOME in the media may paint Somali pirates as womanizers with lavish tastes and an eye for Nairobi real estate, but Nuruddin Farah exposes the shallowness of such depictions in his 11th novel, "Crossbones." This timely book, which can be read as a stand-alone work or as the final volume in the author's acclaimed Past Imperfect trilogy, is politically courageous and often gripping. Farah was born in Somalia, studied in India and now lives in both Minneapolis and Cape Town, and his cosmopolitan sensibilities inform his syntax, imagery and characters. One of his three main players is Malik, a half-Somali, half-Malaysian war correspondent based in New York. Accompanied by Jeebleh, his wise, sensitive father-in-law, Malik arrives in Somalia in 2006, days before Ethiopia invades the country. In part, he is helping to track down his nephew, Taxliil, a Somali-American teenager from Minnesota who has joined the militant Islamic group the Shabab. He is also hungry to write about the warfare and poverty that plague Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Before Malik's arrival, the city was controlled by "armed clanbased militiamen high on drugs," intent on threatening those who refused to "do their bidding." Now "religionists" have enforced a precarious order. Malik learns that many of these white-robed men, members of the ruling Union of Islamic Courts, are former militia members currently inflicting a different kind of trauma They oppress women, assassinate dissidents and form alliances with pirates. But these zealots aren't single-mindedly demonized by the author, who takes great pains to illuminate the roots of Somalia's turmoil in a nuanced manner. Farah demonstrates how war profiteers make lucrative careers out of chaos. The bloody Ethiopian invasion, which received significant backing from the United States, not only foments antiAmerican sentiment, but also makes the most secular Somalis sympathize with the religionists. Young Taxliil's radicalization, too, is a function of both his association with militant clerics and America's misguided "war on terror." The only political element Farah is markedly restrained about is America's fickle and damaging cold war involvement in the region. As Malik survives bomb blasts in Mogadishu, his honorable older brother, Ahl - Taxliil's stepfather - has arrived from America to hunt for his stepson in Puntland, a hotbed of pirate activity. Ahl somewhat arbitrarily attaches himself to a stranger named Fidno, a former doctor with links to piracy. Fidno is willing to connect Ahl with a notorious human trafficker who may be able to locate Taxliil. But he wants a favor in return: an introduction to Malik. Fidno wants to tell Malik his story so the world can know the truth about piracy - which began, he explains, with helpless Somali fishermen who wanted to deter "foreigner sea bandits" from illegally overfishing their coastline and littering it with toxic waste. Impoverished Somali pirates don't actually earn much money or harm their hostages, Fidno explains, but powerful nations advocate for anti-piracy measures in order to protect "the ability of their vessels to fish illegitimately" or more freely pursue Al Qaeda. TRACTS like this can feel didactic, but they are also provocative. The real problems in this novel are inconsistent plotting, repetitiveness and a verbose third-person narration that results in muddled psychological portraits. Take Malik, who upon learning that an American submarine has bombed an alleged Somali terrorist, thinks: "One very bad dude dead and buried. Next!" Encounters with extreme brutality have seemingly converted this open-minded intellectual into a vengeful war hawk, but Farah doesn't offer enough clarity about this profound evolution. Even with these elisions, however, "Crossbones" provides a sophisticated introduction to present-day Somalia, and to the circle of poverty and violence that continues to blight the country. Hirsh Sawhney, the editor of the anthology "Delhi Noir," is completing his first novel.
Kirkus Review
A freelance journalist and his brother get caught up in a geopolitical hornet's nest when they travel to their ancestral land of Somalia. A seasoned war correspondent based in New York City, Malik knows a thing or two about global hot spots. But even with stints in the Congo and Afghanistan under his belt, nothing prepares him for the surreal experience of landing in Mogadiscio, home to human traffickers and pirates alike. Fortunately, he is not alone. His Somali-born father-in-law, Jeebleh, has accompanied him, hoping to smooth the younger man's way, and introduce him to some locals who will help him find sources for his stories, and keep him safe.Through Jeeblah he meets Bile, an ailing physician who, like Jeeblah, served time in jail as a political dissident. Bile lives with his much younger lover, Cambara, a situation that has not gone unnoticed by the ostensibly pious Union of Islamic Courts. Meanwhile, Malik's bother Ahl has flown to the autonomous Somali state of Puntland to track down his teenage stepson Taxliil, who ran away from his Minnesota home with some other boys to join the Shabaab group of Islamic fighters. Desperate to bring the kid home before he martyrs himself, Ahl pleads with Malik to interview a dangerous local kingpin in hopes of gleaning info on Taxliil's whereabouts. Risking his life, and those of the people around him, Malik discovers the symbiotic relationship between pirates and Islamic extremists, as well as the surprising origins of the piracy epidemic. Things get riskier still when U.S.-backed Ethiopian forces invade in an attempt to drive out the Islamist leadership. Harrowing without resorting to sensationalism, this highly topical final volume in Farah's Past Imperfect trilogy (Knots, 2007, etc.) should burnish his well-deserved reputation. It is dense, complex stuff, but his brave and imperfect characters are a pleasure to follow. Gripping but utterly humane thriller set in one of the least-understood regions on earth.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Accompanied by his son-in-law Malik, Jeebleh arrives in Mogadishu, Somalia, from New York to visit ailing friend Bile, like him a former political prisoner. Jeebleh had left his homeland for the United States, while Bile stayed on with his companion, Cambara, valiantly hoping to effect change from within. Through their connections, journalist Malik sets up interviews, intending to report on pirating in Somalia's coastal waters. Malik's brother Ahl is also in Somalia, seeking to rescue his son, a naive, malleable teen who's been recruited for jihad by an imam in Minneapolis. As the brothers try to navigate a complex network of alliances, readers gain insight into a once beautiful land devastated by civil war, invasions, and the plundering of its natural resources by foreign nations. Secularists, warlords, and fundamentalists vie for control as ordinary citizens suffer from living where life is cheap and death waits around every corner. VERDICT Internationally acclaimed author Farah has written a heartbreaking yet clear-eyed novel of the Somalian Diaspora. Part of the "Past Imperfect" trilogy, which includes Links and Knots, it can stand alone, but avid readers will feel compelled to check out the previous works. Especially recommended for those who prefer to absorb history through fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 3/7/11.]-Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib., Ft. Myers, FL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.