For Nuruddin Farah, the personal is the political. His novels, short stories, essays and plays deal with the themes of a lost country, a lost cultural identity and the burden of keeping a country alive in minds and hearts.
After decades writing about the political struggles, civil war and the diaspora, Farah is using his passion, wisdom and talent for language to help negotiate a peaceful arrangement among fighting factions in his native Somalia.
As part of a U.S. speaking tour, Farah will be on campus Feb. 13-14 to speak on “Political Islam and Clan in Present-day Somalia” for the Assembly Series and to present a reading/discussion of his works for the Department of English in Arts & Sciences. Both events are free and open to the public.
The English department presentation will be held at 8 p.m. Feb. 13 in Hurst Lounge, Room 201 Duncker Hall; the Assembly Series talk will be held at 11 a.m. Feb. 14 in Graham Chapel.
His appearance is part of The Big Read communitywide literacy project, which invites individuals to read Ray Bradbury’s classic “Fahrenheit 451” and discuss its themes of book censorship. The Big Read is a national program designed to encourage literary reading by helping communities come together to read and discuss a single book. (For more information, visit bigread.wustl.edu.)
Farah is familiar with the harm done by book censorship. His debut novel, “From a Crooked Rib,” was published in 1970, but it was his second novel, “A Naked Needle” (1976) that angered the Somalian government, which ordered his works banned and sentenced him to death.
Farah began a self-imposed exile that would last for 22 years. He continued to write and teach throughout Europe, America, India and Africa.
With more than a dozen works of fiction to his credit, most of them created in English (not his native language), he has gained worldwide acclaim and has been consistently shortlisted for major global literary prizes. In 1998, he won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
He is well known for his trilogies: “Blood in the Sun” and “Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship.”
He is working on his third trilogy and has published two of those stories: “Links” in 2004 and “Knots” in 2006.
For more information, call 935-4620 or visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu.