Gifts
A Novel
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The second novel in Nuruddin Farah's Blood in the Sun trilogy, Gifts is the beguiling tale of a Somali family and the struggles of its powerful matriarch to keep it whole. Duniya is a single mother, raising twins while working as a nurse in a Mogadiscio hospital. Her self-sufficient world is rocked when her rebellious daughter brings home a mysterious foundling infant. And when Duniya accepts a ride to work from a wealthy, romantically interested family friend, her whole life is turned upside down.
Meanwhile, the hospital where she works is besieged by a desperate population ravaged by war, drought, disease, and famine. Western relief agencies have invaded Somalia with their charity, and some Somalis chafe at tainted goods and the burden of debts they can never hope to repay. With lyrical, luxuriant prose, Farah weaves a spellbinding tapestry of reportage, dreams, memory, folktales, and family lore. In his hands, Duniya's tale becomes emblematic of the struggles of an entire people.
Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Gifts, the second volume in Farah's Blood in the Sun trilogy (see Maps, above), the same forces of war and unrest in Somalia shape the life of Duniya, a widowed nurse with three children trying to juggle a career and the emotional needs of a mature woman in the big city. Nearing 35 years of age, she is pitied by her fellow nurses as a woman whose happiest years have already passed her by. As Duniya recalls the dearth of choices in a rigid patriarchal society, she tells how her dying father asked his friend, Zubair, to marry his young daughter and how she was unable to refuse the old blind man, who would sire her twins before dying. Over the course of Duniya's many adventures, her sanity is buttressed by her loyal friend, Bosaaso, a widower Duniya meets at the hospital. The solidity and sincerity of their unlikely relationship counteracts the pain and confusion caused by the series of mishaps that befall the resilient Duniya, who represents, in her strength and courage, the kind of women who enable Somalia to survive its darkest moments. In Gifts, as in Maps, Farah presents a remarkable portrait of unquenchable humanity in a beleaguered people. Reading both these distinctive, significant books will whet the reader's appetite for Farah's powerful early works.
