Instructor Comments - Close Sesame

"I used Nuruddin Farah's Close Sesame for the first time in my African literature course last semester, and had a wonderful time with it. There are a number of things that recommend Close Sesame : the theme (of how, after a lifetime of non-violence, one man opts to become an assassin) is in some ways unexpected and challenges complacent American assumptions about political realities and individual responses; the use of language, and of languages (which John Updike once decried in reviewing Ngugi wa Thiongo's fiction), creates both a cultural and semiotic experience of Somalia and Africa for the reader that simultaneously emphasizes our similarities and differences; and the characterizations, of devout Muslims who are also cosmopolitan intellectuals, sensitive human beings, and extremely empathetic individuals, seem the perfect antidote for some of the most pernicious assumptions about Islam rampant in the popular American mind. Close Sesame provided several of the best classes of my course. I was impressed enough by the class's reaction to the novel that I'm planning a web page of explanatory notes for the next time I teach it."
-- D. Mesher, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA