Opposing Dictatorship: a Comment on Nuruddin Farah's 'Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship'

Abstract

A critique of a trilogy of novels written by Nuruddin Farah in the late 1970s and early 1980s tracing the activities, perceptions and ideological platforms of selected members of a clandestine opposition group in present-day Somalia. The critique examines the Somali regime as it is portrayed in the three novels together with the views of it held by members of the secret opposition group and the different tactics for its removal employed by them. It then considers some of the questions arising from Farah's use of his subject-matter and the way in which he approaches it.