Witnessing Contemporary Somalia from Abroad: An Interview with Nuruddin Farah

The following interview was conducted at the Gothenburg Book Fair in Sweden in September 2010. This event, which concentrated on African literature, gathered together approximately seventy authors from many African countries as well as locations throughout the African diaspora. Somali author Nuruddin Farah was invited to participate in this event as one of the main guest authors. Over the course of the Book Fair, we met to discuss his career, his most recent trilogy, and the political situation in contemporary Somalia.

NIEMI:

You have very often been asked why you write in English and not in Somali. But as we know there are strong reasons behind your decision to write mainly in English. First of all, you wrote your first novella Why Die So Soon? in 1965 and published your first novel From a Crooked Rib in 1970 before the Somali language had a script. After the Somali orthography was established in 1972, you wrote a novel in Somali, but you ran into troubles with this novel, and switched back to English. This question of English versus indigenous African languages evokes the language disputes first discussed on a larger scale at a Conference of African Writers of English Expression held in Makerere in 1962. Since then, for instance, Chinua Achebe and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o have openly disagreed on the language question, i.e. whether African authors should or should not feel free to use former colonial languages, particularly English, in their writing. I am wondering what is at stake today in the decision to write in English rather than in Somali or another indigenous African language.

FARAH:

My position is obviously not taking sides. What matters in fact is not often the language, but the content of what one writes. Obviously language matters in determining the nature of the content, but I think in a current situation in Africa sometimes it would be very, very difficult to write in indigenous languages and remain neutral in political questions. And the reason is because in a multi-ethnic, multi-language country like Kenya, somebody speaking a different language from Ngũgĩ might think, “Well are he and I of the same mental mold?” And the other thing is that there is a great deal of jingoism and national jingoism in local languages. Which obviously does not necessarily happen when you are writing in European languages.

NIEMI:

Your career now spans over four decades. Most of that time you have spent in exile, but have been able to visit Somalia a few times since 1996. You have called Somalia “a country of your imagination” and have also said that you would like your “books to be a commentary on Somalia and the history of Somalia” (Alden and Tremaine 43). And your work has followed and reflected upon the changes the country has gone through during these last four decades, as your three trilogies have covered different historical aspects of the country. Your first trilogy examines the dictatorial regime of Mohammed Siad Barre, your second trilogy features the civil war following the overthrow of Barre’s regime, and the more recent status of the country is examined in your newest trilogy. I keep thinking that your work has a certain strong ethical component to it, as it has now for decades witnessed the changes taking place in the country and as it persistently keeps Somalia “alive” in contrast to the media messages that have for a long time most often depicted the country in a pessimistic light. Do you feel that you as a Somali author have a certain ethical responsibility to witness the changing states of the country?

FARAH:

It is not only a certain ethical but a moral, ethical, and also philosophical responsibility. The reason is that different situations require different standpoints because when the game changes the language and the approach that the author takes toward certain things also must change. And the debate also changes. For that reason, now the big debate is: should Somalia be a secular state or an Islamic state? These questions that arise pose challenges that are different...