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Literary Provocations Nuruddin Farah Five Decades on © Claude Lortie 57 (1) 2020 • Vierde Reeks • Fourth Series • Herfs • Autumn

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Literary Provocations Nuruddin Farah Five Decades on © Claude Lortie 57 (1) 2020 • Vierde Reeks • Fourth Series • Herfs • Autumn ’n tydskrif vir afrika-letterkunde • a journal for african literature Ali M. Ahad • Ali J. Ahmed • Annel H. Pieterse • Annie Gagiano • Asis De • Azille Coetzee • Chris Broodryk Christopher Fotheringham • Cristina Ali Farah • Delia Rabie • Earl Basson • F. Fiona Moolla • Hanika Froneman Hein Willemse • Isolde de Villiers • Kamil Naicker • Karen Haire • Lethabo Mailula • Marco Medugno • Natalia Flores Neil van Heerden • Nick M. Tembo • Nuruddin Farah • Pauline Dodgson-Katiyo • Reed W. Dasenbrock • Siseko H. Kumalo Shawna-Leze Meiring • Stefan van Zyl • Tenita Z. Kidelo • Tycho Maas • Vivian Gerrand 57 (1) 2020 • Vierde reeks • Fourth series • Herfs • Autumn Tydskrif VIR LETTERKUNDE Literary provocations Nuruddin Farah five decades on © Claude Lortie 57 (1) 2020 • Vierde reeks • Fourth series • Herfs • Autumn Redakteur/ Editor Jacomien van Niekerk, U Pretoria (RSA) Streeksredakteure/ Regional Editors Algemeen / General Willie Burger, U Pretoria (RSA) Arabies / Arabic Muhammed Haron, U Botswana (Botswana) Frans / French Antoinette Tidjani Alou, U Abdou Moumouni (Niger) Kasonga M. Kapanga, U Richmond (VSA / USA) Oos-Afrika / East Africa Alex Wanjala, U Nairobi (Kenia / Kenya) Resensies / Reviews Bibi Burger, U Pretoria (RSA) Suider-Afrika / Southern Africa Grant Andrews, U Witwatersrand (RSA) Susan Meyer, North-West / Noordwes U (RSA) Lesibana Rafapa, U Limpopo (RSA) Wes-Afrika / West Africa Jonathon Repinecz, George Mason (VSA / USA) Isidore Diala, Imo state U (Nigerië / Nigeria) Administasie / Administrator Tercia Klopper, U Pretoria (RSA) Ontwerp en uitleg / Design and layout Tercia Klopper, U Pretoria (RSA) Cover image: Photo by Claude Lortie Resensieredakteur Review editor Dr Bibi Burger Dr Bibi Burger Departement Afrikaans Department of Afrikaans Geesteswetenskappe gebou 15-11 Humanities Building 15-11 Universiteit van Pretoria University of Pretoria Hoek van Lynnwood en Roper Corner of Lynnwood and Roper Hatfield 0083 Hatfield 0083 Pretoria Pretoria [email protected] [email protected] Borg: Marie Luttig Testamentêre Trust Sponsor: Marie Luttig Testamentêre Trust Nota / Note Tydskrif vir Letterkunde is vanaf uitgawe 54.1 (2017) slegs as e-joernaal beskikbaar by http://journals.assaf.org.za/tvl. Vir nadere besonderhede skakel [email protected]. From issue 54.1 (2017) Tydskrif vir Letterkunde is only available as an e-journal at http://journals.assaf.org.za/tvl. For further information email [email protected]. ISSN: 0041-476X E-ESSN: 2309-9070 GW / HSB 15-16, U Pretoria, Pretoria 0002 Tel: +27-12-420 5904 Faks/Fax: +27-12-420 3949 E-pos/Email: [email protected] Webblad/Website: http://journals.assaf.org.za/tvl INHOUDSOPGAWE / TABLE OF CONTENTS REDAKSIONEEL / EDITORIALS 1 Introduction: Reinscribing Nuruddin Farah in African literature — F. Fiona Moolla ESSAYS 7 Nuruddin Farah: A lived commitment to Africa — Reed Way Dasenbrock 11 Nuruddin Farah and Somali culture — Ali Jimale Ahmed 18 Mogadishu as lost modern: In conversation with A Naked Needle — Ubah Cristina Ali Farah ONDERHOUDE / INTERVIEWS 23 Reflecting back, projecting forward: A conversation with Nuruddin Farah — Nuruddin Farah & Fiona Moolla 30 The marathoner not yet at the finish line: Nuruddin Farah in Rome —Nuruddin Farah & Ali Mumin Ahad NAVORSINGSARTIKELS / RESEARCH ARTICLES 37 The lost years of a nomad: Exploring Indian experience in Nuruddin Farah’s literary oeuvre — Asis De 45 Dante in Mogadishu: The Divine Comedy in Nuruddin Farah’s Links — Marco Medugno 56 A nation of narratives: Soomaalinimo and the Somali novel — Christopher Fotheringham 67 Anxiety and influence in Nuruddin Farah and younger Somali writers —Pauline Dodgson- Katiyo 77 Male ‘Somaliness’ in diasporic contexts: Somali authors’ evaluative evocations — Annie Gagiano 88 Nuruddin Farah: Variations on the theme of return — Kamil Naicker 96 Perceiving precarity and extremism in North of Dawn — Nick Mdika Tembo 106 Trajectories of radicalisation and resilience in Nuruddin Farah’s North of Dawn — Vivian Gerrand 115 Nuruddin Farah and Pascale Casanova: A pas de deux across The World Republic of Letters — F. Fiona Moolla OORSIGTE / REVIEWS 126 Chronology: Nuruddin Farah — F. Fiona Moolla 128 Selected bibliography — F. Fiona Moolla RESENSIES / BOOK REVIEWS 136 Sol Plaatjie: A Life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatjie, 1876–1932 (Brian P. Willan) — Karen Haire 138 From the Spice Islands to Cape Town: The life and times of Tuan Guru (Shafiq Morton) — Hein Willemse 139 Race, Nation, Translation: South African Essays, 1990–2013 (Zoë Wicomb) — Siseko H. Kumalo 142 Death and Compassion: The Elephant in Southern African Literatures (Dan Wylie) — Delia Rabie 143 Literature and the Law in South Africa, 1910–2010: The Long Walk to Artistic Freedom (Ted Laros) — Isolde de Villiers 145 Like Family: Domestic Workers in South African History and Literature (Ena Jansen) — Azille Coetzee 146 This Mournable Body (Tsitsi Dangarembga) — Natalia Flores 147 Chinatown (Ronelda S. Kamfer) — Tenita Zinsi Kidelo 149 All the Places (Musawenkosi Khanyile) — Annel Helena Pieterse 151 Die kinders van Spookwerwe (Lize Albertyn-du Toit) — Shawna-Leze Meiring 152 There Goes English Teacher: A Memoir (Karin Cronje) — Hanika Froneman 153 Lagos Noir (Chris Abani, ed.) — Neil van Heerden 155 I Turned Away and She Was Gone: A Play (Jennie Reznek) — Chris Broodryk 156 Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun (Sarah Ladipo Manyika) — Lethabo Mailula 157 Die dao van van Daan van der Walt (Lodewyk G. du Plessis) — Stefan van Zyl 158 Gam se tjind (Aubrey Cloete) — Earl Basson 159 Ek kom terug (Adriaan van Dis) — Tycho Maas Editorial Introduction: Reinscribing Nuruddin Farah in African literature F. Fiona Moolla “Literary provocations: Nuruddin Farah five decades on” was a project conceived by Tydskrif vir Letterkunde as a festschrift honoring the career of one of the most well-known, but also most underrepresented, authors in African literature. Farah has been a prolific author, with thirteen novels to date, translated into many world languages, and whose creativity in his seventies proceeds apace with another novel and a non-fiction work in progress. He has won prestigious literary awards, most notably the 1998 Neustadt Prize, and his novels in translation have won major Italian and French awards. Despite these international indices of recognition, Farah has not enjoyed the prominence in African literature circles of figures like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka or Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. On the international literary scene, Farah has a very strong presence in the American media with reviews of novels and publication of opinion pieces on Somali socio-political questions in major newspapers, and interviews at ma- jor literary events and on popular television chat shows. It is curious therefore that Farah has not been recognized through a special issue of an American literary journal where his reputation is probably strongest except for a special issue of World Literature Today (vol. 72, no. 4, 1998) on the occasion of Farah’s receipt of the Neustadt Prize. The commissioning of a theme issue on the work of Farah in a South African literary journal therefore is noteworthy both in African continental and world literature contexts. Commemorating Farah’s career in Tydskrif vir Letterkunde may be seen as an attempt at a reconsideration of Farah’s position in African literature, and an ac- knowledgement of the possible reconfiguration of Farah as a South African writer, in addition to his position as a “Somali” diasporic writer. Hein Willlemse, former editor-in-chief of Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, explains the journal’s interest in Farah mainly through cognizance of the relative disparities between Farah, on the one hand, and Ache- be, Soyinka and Ngũgĩ, the canonized triumvirate of African authors, on the other. Willemse identifies three main reasons for Farah’s relatively marginal position: The first relates to the major focus in much of Farah’s fiction on questions of gender that up until the late twentieth century, mainly through the literature and activism of African women writers, did not receive much attention. Willemse suggests that: Farah was published […] towards the end of the first wave of Nigerian writing, and the first autobiographical writings of the post-independence generation of African writers. African literature as a discipline was still being established and much of the literary attention had been on Achebe, Soyinka, and the wave of post-independence writers, the apartheid struggle and people like Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Mandela and the like. The little-known Farah studied in India, wrote a slim novella on a woman’s struggle for liberation against male dominance. This in itself meant that Farah initially found himself outside the mainstream of this newly developing discipline which settled itself in London, and the east coast of the USA. The theme of his first work was not a major consideration for the first generation of writers or critics. Most of the critics were male, their attention was focused on independence realpolitik (postcoloniality as a distinct theoretical discipline did not exist), and defining African particularity (Leopold Senghor etc.) rather than issues of gender. (Wil- lemse and Moolla) The second reason Willemse identifies for the relative lack of attention to Farah lies in the particularities of the exceptionality of Somalia’s history and its history of colonization, in particular, where “its primary nexus is not the major colonial powers, the British or the French, but rather the Arabs and
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