North of Dawn

Chapter One

Gacalo wages an unrelenting campaign for several months, hoping that Mugdi will not stand in the way of Dhaqaneh's widow, Waliya, and his two stepchildren joining them in Oslo. Knowing Gacalo, she will not hesitate to recruit the support of their daughter Timiro, visiting from her home in Geneva; Kaluun, Mugdi's younger brother; their Norwegian friends Johan and Birgitta Nielsen; and Himmo, a Somali woman residing in Oslo whom Gacalo and Mugdi have grown close to and who is of the view that Gacalo should continue supporting the widow and her two children where they are, in Kenya. But Gacalo is adamant that she will not give up until Mugdi and everyone else accedes to her demand.

Inflexible, Mugdi repeatedly asks, "Why would I sponsor the wife of a son whom I forsook first and then denounced as a terrorist?"

A former ambassador in Somalia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs just before the collapse of the state structures, Mugdi is used to having his own way. It is no secret that it irritates him to see people opposing him when their rationale does not sit well with his reasoning.

The longer the standoff lasts and Gacalo makes it obvious that she won't settle for anything less than Mugdi's full public endorsement of her plan, the more everyone becomes concerned. Gacalo's inability to convince Mugdi to share her vision upsets her so much that she feels diminished, unloved, to the point that one afternoon, after yet another explosive argument, she storms out of the house, not knowing where she is going.

When she doesn't answer her mobile phone or return home for a long time, Timiro goes out in search of her mother in the two parks close by. Not finding her at either park, she telephones Birgitta, who confirms that Gacalo is with them.

On Timiro's way home from her search, she runs into Himmo, who has just alighted from the tram after a night shift at the hospital where she works as a nurse. Delighted by the

Nuruddin Farah is the author of eleven previous novels, which have been translated into more than twenty languages and won numerous awards, including the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

Praise for North of Dawn:

A nuanced, quietly devastating family soap opera...Farah has been writing books for nearly half a century, his name aligned with Nadine Gordimer and Chinua Achebe. Like them, he uses the intimate as allegory for the national....Farah is a deeply sophisticated writer, his prose almost aromatic, like rich, sweet Somali tea.   The New York Times Book Review

A piercing novel of the Somali diaspora... from its shock opening to its bitter end, Mr Farah shines a searching light on family unity and national identity, examining what binds and what divides. when Mr Farah s characters ring true, his novel soars.   The Economist

The political becomes personal in this beautifully affecting fictional tale.   O, The Oprah Magazine

Farah exempts no one from criticism, yet he denies no one sympathy; exile and opportunity, rage and love, delusion and faith are inextricable.   The New Yorker

[The characters ] story, simply told, gives intimate life to experience so often framed in world-political terms. Art is a humanizer, as one character observes and as the Somali novelist clearly and deftly demonstrates, once again. Minneapolis Star Tribune

Affecting the patient clarity of Farah s storytelling makes the cultures he depicts, and the history he outlines, easily comprehensible. His characters are beautifully drawn, their psychology complex.   Boston Globe

North of Dawn is a story we rarely hear, a tale concerning the terrorist s family that takes place in the long shadow of grief, shame and twisted loyalty. It s also a story pulsing with the adrenaline of our era: a toxic mix of zealotry and xenophobia.   Washington Post

[A] quiet heartbreaker.   Entertainment Weekly

A political novel that is also a family drama a searing, necessary story about identity, xenophobia, and family loyalty from a