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Nuruddin Farah Quotes
born 1945 Somalia
Nuruddin Farah (born 1945) is a Somali novelist. His first novel, From a Crooked Rib, was published in 1970 and has been described as "one of the cornerstones of modern East African literature today".
Random Nuruddin Farah quote
62 quotes
It is small-minded to be too arrogant or to think you know enough
The absence of the patriarch creates a matriarch who then represents that traditional oppressive system
What exile has done for me is that it has somehow freed me from the family constraint
A lot needs to be done for us to promote the healthier aspects of our culture and to exploit the potential that is there
As long as I have lived somewhere in Africa, I didn't consider myself in exile. It's only when I lived outside the continent
I wasn’t doing it because I was feminist but because fair is fair
I don't know if I'm a nomad as much as a mover-about
We become replicas of the tyrant whom we hate
I’ve always thought that society could not be considered free, democratic, developed, let alone “civilized,” when a large segment is kept out of the mainstream of politics and life
Perhaps it was my generation interested in dictatorship and not the younger ones
Any human activity that involves more than two persons, and that touches on a topic that involves a third and a fourth party, is a political affair
While many other people still found it perplexing how Somali society treated women, for me it was and continues to be an invitation to dig deeper into the constitution of Somali culture
The way things are, the secondary cannot take place until the first has taken place, but the first cannot continue in total ignorance of the second
The leadership of Somalia ought to be placed in the hands of women and sympathizers to the causes of women in view of the fact we—the male society—have failed
I am not a European, I am a Pan-Africanist
Culture, when approached with a more progressive secularity serves as a well-rounded, less limited and less limiting way and not when we approach it from a narrow-minded, constrictive manner
if I can't come back home then I will make the rest of Africa my country.
I approach writing as though it were a game that I play alone, in a room by myself
There is a dual lineage to which Africans belong and that makes it easy: if you know African tradition you know Christianity
I convince myself that I’m new to writing, that I am doing it for the first time, in the hopes of producing something completely, absolutely different
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