Nuruddin Farah - Quotes

The idea of the . . . trilogy is centered around the notion of an orphaned nation . . . I had in mind to have orphans as the central consciousness of each of the novels, and this serves as the trilogy's thematic concern," the author says. "As a general, Siad Barre [the national leader ousted during the 1991 uprising] fails the Somali nation when the national army is defeated at the hands of the combined efforts of Ethiopia, Cuba, and the then-Soviet Union. He fails a second time when he doesn't resign as soon as the defeated national army returns to base. Defeat is an implosive nature, an infestation capable of poisoning the body-politic of a people. Somalia, as a result, begins to rely on foreign aid. And Secrets is the novel in which it all explodes.
Farah, Nuruddin.

Motherhood is the off-and-on light in the darkness of night, a firefly in joyous dizziness and rejoicing, now here, now there, and everywhere. Our problem as a society is that we pay mothers only lip service, nothing else. In fact, the crisis that is coming to a head in the shape of civil strife would not be breaking on us if we'd offered women-as-mothers their due worth, respect and affection, a brightness celebrating motherhood, a monument erected in a worship of women.
Farah, Nuruddin.

The point is to create a situation where it becomes something important to the people about whom the novel is being narrated but not to the people who hear it...
Farah, Nuruddin.

A society exists only in the things it hides. Sex is the 'secret' that two people hide between them or the voyeur keeps concealed, and the things that you hide are the things that define you.
Farah, Nuruddin.

The reason why the strife has not ended is because it has no clan base. There are open and closed secrets even in Somali society. There is the open secret that the civil war in Somalia is about a conflict between various groups. (But) there is a hidden agenda ... power...
Farah, Nuruddin.

Clan doesn't matter to them, who dies doesn't matter to them. It would be a dishonesty on my part to omit this particular phase of what happened in Somalia.
Farah, Nuruddin.