ABSTRACT

Love (Aqoondarro waa u Nacab Jacayl) in 1972. It is set during the time of the Dervish movement in the first two decades of the last century against which the central love story is played. Literacy has a central role in the plot in that the illiterate hero is unable to read a message from the woman he loves, with tragic consequences. Faarax went on to publish two other novels: Garbaduubkii Gumeysiga (The Shackles of Colonialism) (1989) looks back at the history of the Somali territories through the words of an old man dictating to his son, who completes its writing in his own blood when he runs out of ink. The third novel Dhibbanaha aan Dhalan (The Unborn Victim) is set during the war between Somalia and Ethiopia in the late 1970s and is the story of a young woman caught up in the turmoil. Faarax brought Somali poetry into his novels, and this, interplaying with the narratives, gave them a distinctive and powerful style, a key contribution to Somali literature.