Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
Sardines is about Farah’s opposition to the three forces that are dragging Somalia down. The oppressive regime of Siad Barre, the tribal -clan system and the outdated teachings from the Islamic law.The story evolved around Medina-Samater relationship and Sagal’s swimming carrier/ being pregnant/ dealing with her mother.Medina is a journalist, is wife of Samater, who is being appointed as minister. She is the mother of eight-year old daughter, Ubax. Medina is similar to the main characters of Far...
[Around the World challenge: Somalia] This novel is about women's life in higher socio-professional categories in Somalia, and it is great. There's not much of a plot, it's more about exchanging ideas and convictions. The characters are deep and diverse, and I found Medina very intimidating even through words on paper. The book was written in the 80s so things may have changed for the better or the worst but still there are some universal messages to draw from it. Bonus point: the writing style
la dictature commence au sein de la famille elle-même:
Female genital mutilation became a headline issue in Britain in the second decade of the twenty-first century. There were frequent stories (many extremely harrowing) and much fist-banging comment in newspapers; help websites were set up; campaigns were organised to suppress the hideous practice. The previously current neutral terms ‘clitoridectomy’ and ‘female circumcision’ were universally dropped, in favour of the wholly condemnatory ‘FGM’. But oddly, although since 1985 an estimated 3,000–4,0...
[#92 Somalia] This is the amazing story of a group of Somalian women, their struggles, their convictions, and their choices. There's not much of a plot, which means the pace may seem slow, but it's less about an adventure and more about ideas being discussed. Since it was written in the 80s, it might not be the most up-to-date novel ever, but the writing style is spectacular, especially coming from a country where oral tradition is strongly predominant.
wonder full
Second book of trilogy called 'Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship', Nurrudin Farrah looks at the impact of despotism on families led by women in 1970s Somalia. The way Farrah manages to convey the deep scars a dictatorship regime leaves on an individual without the reference to major events in the lives of the characters is spectacular. It is indeed with subtlety that the author manages to convey the complex intricacies of such a regime's impact on everyday people's lives. How on...
I love Farah's expressive prose, and found this story as captivating as Sweet and Sour Milk. The book is a multifaceted exploration of the varied issues facing African women and their varied responses. While it is difficult to avoid skepticism when reading a book written by a man from such a heavily gendered social context, Farah's story clearly aims to represent the complexity of African feminist issues.I was introduced to Nuruddin Farah through his novel Links, which I read as part of a divers...
A difficult read this one, mostly because it is dark, grey, very internal, with an oppressive government just looming behind everyone. Sardines follows the lives of Medina, who loses her job as the editor of the national newspaper of Somalia. She struggles to bring up her young daughter Ubax, as her friend Sagal is herself trying to figure out whether she wants to flee Somalia or take part in some subversive political action, and discovering that she might be pregnant. Farah tends towards metaph...
Farah's penchant for verbosity comes across aplomb in this book, with long meandering passages that don't seem to carry the same focus as they did in Sweet and Sour Milk (the first book in the trilogy). Even with that, though, beautiful prose still comes through, and tons of metaphors and symbols come in play as well. I couldn't help but feel sort of annoyed at the end of the novel when a character explicitly said something was a metaphor when he had already made it clear by mentioning it in jux...
Nuruddin Farah is a clever writer beyond doubt. Never falls into the trap of making an odious figure out of an dictator. Rather, he challenges the system, scrutinizes family, traditions, even family... - nothing falls short of his attention. A dictatorship as a fraternity (or sorority for that matter) of complices in crime... and the cost of standing aside... Besides, Farah is a great commander over metaphors: the myth of Prometheus, New Year fire, fire as a source of power and inequality - I am...
I'm not sure if I ever finished reading this book... I just remember being seriously annoyed with it and finding it a super slow read in college. It's a shame, because the first page seemed so promising and pulled me in--but maybe I wound up disliking it so much because the professor of that class was a terror and I hated most of the texts. I also tend to dislike anything I'm forced to read, which is why I usually rate any book I even remotely enjoyed in college 4 stars and up. Who knows. I doub...
Best yet! Made the mistake of starting with book 3 in the trilogy, finished with this one, book 2 - it works, but would have made more sense starting at the beginning. I'm hoping to convince Nuruddin Farah to read his books on-air on Bar-Kulan radio. www.bar-kulan.com
superb