London: Allison & Busby, 1979. First Edition. 237 pages; 22 cm. Fine in fine jacket. Uneven paper stock to text block. Hardcover. ISBN: 0850312949; 9780850312942; 0435902261; 9780435902261
Set in and around Mogadishu in 1975, Loyaan, a Western-educated dentist, tries to find out why his twin brother Soyaan, a political activist, died suddenly. He is blocked at every turn by the state and by his own father, a former government interrogator and torturer. The investigation plays out as a detective story, but in a regime where spreading "antirevolutionary" information can carry the death penalty, the search for answers slowly turns inward and becomes a search for meaning. It opens the trilogy Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship, followed by Sardines (1981) and Close Sesame (1983), all first published by Allison & Busby. It appeared four years after Farah had been driven into exile by Siad Barre's military government, and it made him persona non grata in Somalia. The book won the English-Speaking Union Literary Award in 1980 and remains the foundation of Farah's reputation as one of Africa's major novelists.Chronicles one man's search for the reasons behind his twin brother's violent death during the 1970s. The atmosphere of political tyranny and repression reduces our hero's quest to a passive and fatalistic level; his search for reasons and answers ultimately becomes a search for meaningSomali fiction (English) Fiction. Romans.
