Sardines

Winner of the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Nuruddin Farah is often praised as Africa’s greatest contemporary novelist. The trilogy Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship, in particular, has earned him enormous critical acclaim and is considered “the centerpiece of Farah’s achievement” by The Guardian.

In Sardines, the second novel of the trilogy, a woman loses her job as editor of the national newspaper and finds her efforts to instill her daughter with a sense of dignity and independence threatened by an oppressive government and the traditions of conservative Islam. This book brilliantly combines a social commentary on life under a dictatorship with a compassionate exploration of African feminist issues.

“Farah is one of the real interpreters of experience on our troubled continent. His insight goes deep, beyond events, into the sorrows and joys, the frustrations and achievements of our lives. His prose finds the poetry that is there. This trilogy represents both the wide scope and beautiful intimacy of his work.”—Nadine Gordimer

“Farah is one of the few African men who write wonderfully about women.”—Doris Lessing

Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship is published in partnership with the College of Saint Benedict as a part of a series honoring the legacy of S. Mariella Gable, a distinguished teacher at the College.