“Nuruddin Farah is one of the finest contemporary African novelists.”—Salman RushdieThe second novel in Nuruddin Farah's Blood in the Sun trilogy,
Gifts is the beguiling tale of a Somali family and the struggles of its powerful matriarch to keep it whole. Duniya is a single mother, raising twins while working as a nurse in a Mogadiscio hospital. Her self-sufficient world is rocked when her rebellious daughter brings home a mysterious foundling infant. And when Duniya accepts a ride to work from a wealthy, romantically interested family friend, her whole life is turned upside down.
Meanwhile, the hospital where she works is besieged by a desperate population ravaged by war, drought, disease, and famine. Western relief agencies have invaded Somalia with their charity, and some Somalis chafe at tainted goods and the burden of debts they can never hope to repay. With lyrical, luxuriant prose, Farah weaves a spellbinding tapestry of reportage, dreams, memory, folktales, and family lore. In his hands, Duniya's tale becomes emblematic of the struggles of an entire people.
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War in Somalia transforms a simple village girl into a self-confident woman who even swims and drives a car. She is Duniya, a widow with three children.
“One of Africa’s major writers . . . a genuine artist . . . His mastery of complex forms of narration, based on echoes, symmetry, and musical patterns, make his an original voice.” —
Times Literary Supplement“Farah is in control of his enormous talents as a novelist, writing in the best tradition of Solzhenitsyn and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. . . . One of his continent’s major novelists.” —
World Literature Today“Nuruddin Farah is one of the finest contemporary African novelists.”—Salman Rushdie
