Illustration by Matt Rota
By HIRSH SAWHNEY
Some in the media may paint Somali pirates as womanizers with lavish tastes and an eye for Nairobi real estate, but Nuruddin Farah exposes the shallowness of such depictions in his 11th novel, “Crossbones.” This timely book, which can be read as a stand-alone work or as the final volume in the author’s acclaimed Past Imperfect trilogy, is politically courageous and often gripping.
CROSSBONES
By Nuruddin Farah
389 pp. Riverhead Books. $27.95.
Farah was born in Somalia, studied in India and now lives in both Minneapolis and Cape Town, and his cosmopolitan sensibilities inform his syntax, imagery and characters. One of his three main players is Malik, a half-Somali, half-Malaysian war correspondent based in New York. Accompanied by Jeebleh, his wise, sensitive father-in-law, Malik arrives in Somalia in 2006, days before Ethiopia invades the country. In part, he is helping to track down his nephew, Taxliil, a Somali-American teenager from Minnesota who has joined the militant Islamic group the Shabab. He is also hungry to write about the warfare and poverty that plague Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
Before Malik’s arrival, the city was controlled by “armed clan-based militiamen high on drugs,” intent on threatening those who refused to “do their bidding.” Now “religionists” have enforced a precarious order. Malik learns that many of these white-robed men, members of the ruling Union of Islamic Courts, are former militia members currently inflicting a different kind of trauma. They oppress women, assassinate dissidents and form alliances with pirates. But these zealots aren’t single-mindedly demonized by the author, who takes great pains to illuminate the roots of Somalia’s turmoil in a nuanced manner.
Farah demonstrates how war profiteers make lucrative careers out of chaos. The bloody Ethiopian invasion, which received significant backing from the United States, not only foments anti-American sentiment, but also makes the most secular Somalis sympathize with the religionists. Young Taxliil’s radicalization, too, is a function of both his association with militant clerics and America’s misguided “war on terror.” The only political element Farah is markedly restrained about is America’s fickle and damaging cold war involvement in the region.
As Malik survives bomb blasts in Mogadishu, his honorable older brother, Ahl — Taxliil’s stepfather — has arrived from America to hunt for his stepson in Puntland, a hotbed of pirate activity. Ahl somewhat arbitrarily attaches himself to a stranger named Fidno, a former doctor with links to piracy. Fidno is willing to connect Ahl with a notorious human trafficker who may be able to locate Taxliil. But he wants a favor in return: an introduction to Malik. Fidno wants to tell Malik his story so the world can know the truth about piracy — which began, he explains, with helpless Somali fishermen who wanted to deter “foreigner sea bandits” from illegally overfishing their coastline and littering it with toxic waste. Impoverished Somali pirates don’t actually earn much money or harm their hostages, Fidno explains, but powerful nations advocate for anti-piracy measures in order to protect “the ability of their vessels to fish illegitimately” or more freely pursue Al Qaeda.
Tracts like this can feel didactic, but they are also provocative. The real problems in this novel are inconsistent plotting, repetitiveness and a verbose third-person narration that results in muddled psychological portraits. Take Malik, who upon learning that an American submarine has bombed an alleged Somali terrorist, thinks: “One very bad dude dead and buried. Next!” Encounters with extreme brutality have seemingly converted this open-minded intellectual into a vengeful war hawk, but Farah doesn’t offer enough clarity about this profound evolution. Even with these elisions, however, “Crossbones” provides a sophisticated introduction to present-day Somalia, and to the circle of poverty and violence that continues to blight the country.
Hirsh Sawhney, the editor of the anthology “Delhi Noir,” is completing his first novel.
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