City of Asylum (2018)

Nuruddin Farah

Thursday, November 1st
7:00 pm

Winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Nuruddin Farah is one of Africa’s most respected contemporary writers. Maps is the first novel in his acclaimed Blood in the Sun trilogy, set in his native Somalia.

Askar lost his father in the bloody war between Ethiopia and Somalia, and his mother died giving birth to him. Taken in by Misra, a kindhearted woman, he grows up in a small village. But as an adolescent, a true child of his times, he begins to feel suffocated there and goes to live with his cosmopolitan aunt and uncle in the capital.

Nuruddin Farah

“Startling … passionate. Farah’s masterpiece.” — The New York Times

Askar throws himself into radical political activity in the midst of the turmoil and civil war. As allegations of murder and treason are leveled at Misra, Askar’s personal sense identity and Somalia’s political boundaries are challenged with a ferocity he could have never imagined.

This program is presented in partnership with Paul A. Bové, distinguished professor at the University of Pittsburgh and editor of Boundary 2 — a journal of literature and politics around the world.

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