Nuruddin Farah quotes
1945 – · Somalia, 20th–21st century · novelist, essayist and short‑story writer
About Nuruddin Farah
Born 24 November 1945 in Baidoa (then Italian Somaliland), Farah published his first novel in 1970 and went into long exile after the reaction to A Naked Needle (1976). Writing mainly in English, he brings Somali oral forms and social concerns into novels that examine power, gender and the fragmentation of the nation.
Works: From a Crooked Rib; A Naked Needle; Sweet and Sour Milk; Maps
Quotes
“I have tried my best to keep my country alive by writing about it.”
Source: Interview with Jeffrey Brown, PBS NewsHour, February 27, 2007 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence is spoken by Nuruddin Farah in the PBS NewsHour interview conducted by Jeffrey Brown on February 27, 2007.
- What remains uncertain
- Farah refers to an earlier phrasing of the same mission from his youth; the original appearance of that earlier wording is not established by available evidence.
Farah frames writing as cultural preservation: a way to keep a nation's memory alive when institutions and public narratives collapse. He expressed this in a televised interview, saying his mission was to keep his country alive by writing about it. The line is attested in the 2007 PBS interview.