The search for peace in a place of war
Nuruddin's 10th novel follows a Somali expat an on unlikely mission to her homeland.
By Marjorie Kehefrom the February 27, 2007 edition
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In the first pages of Knots, Cambara, the novel's impulsive, determined, Westernized protagonist – who also happens to be over six feet tall and gorgeous – strolls the streets of her childhood home with a close kinsman. But there's nothing sentimental or tender about this particular reunion.
On the contrary, the city to which Cambara has returned is Mogadishu (here spelled Mogadiscio) and after years of civil war, the Somalian capital – seen here in the fierce blaze of the afternoon sun – is a welter of roads in disrepair, houses pocked with bullet marks, and vandalized, abandoned buildings. Roaming the city streets are bands of "sarong- and flip-flop-wearing youths armed with AK-47s."
Cambara's relative, Zaak, is not exactly a sight for sore eyes, either. Undone by the twin evils of despair and an addiction to qaat (a narcotic leaf chewed by some Somalis), Zaak's teeth and breath are foul. To a repulsed Cambara, he's "a hopeless man in a ruined city."
"Knots" is the 10th novel of acclaimed Somali author Nuruddin Farah, who has vowed "to keep my country alive by writing about it."
Cambara, Farah's protagonist, has a similar goal. She's left her comfortable (albeit unhappy) home in Canada, mourning a failed marriage and the death of her young son. With little left to lose, Cambara dons a custom-made caftan – armed with a knife concealed in a secret inner pocket – and sets off on what her mother calls "a plan as flawed as a suicide note" to reappropriate a family villa illegally occupied by a warlord.
There's no particular logic to this – Cambara's family live comfortably in Toronto and the property's long been forgotten – but Cambara seems to feel that if she can re-establish even a tiny pocket of order in Mogadishu then perhaps her son will not have died in vain.
Her ultimate goal of setting up a puppet theater in the reclaimed villa (her son took an interest in puppets) is incongruous at best, but the determination with which Cambara pushes toward normalcy and order drives the plot forward and energizes the novel with a kind of joyous, cock-eyed hope.
Nuruddin gained international attention with the 1970 publication of "From a Crooked Rib" about a Somali woman fleeing an arranged marriage. Ever since, the struggles of his country – and particularly of its women – have been his topic.
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