Sweet and Sour Milk

Variations on the Theme of An African Dictatorship #1

by Nuruddin Farah

Winner of the 1980 English-Speaking Union Literary Award

The first novel in Farah's universally acclaimed Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship trilogy, Sweet and Sour Milk chronicles one man's search for the reasons behind his twin brother's violent death during the 1970s. The atmosphere of political tyranny and repression reduces our hero's quest to a passive and fatalistic level; his search for reasons and answers ultimately becomes a search for meaning. The often detective-story-like narrative of this novel thus moves on a primarily interior plane as "Farah takes us deep into territory he has charted and mapped and made uniquely his own" (Chinua Achebe).

Genres: Africa, Fiction, Somalia, African Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels, World Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Nuruddin Farah (Somali: Nuuradiin Faarax, Arabic: نور الدين فرح‎) is a prominent Somali novelist. Farah has garnered acclaim as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world, his prose having earned him accolades including the Premio Cavour in Italy, the Kurt Tucholsky Prize in Sweden, the Lettre Ulysses Award in Berlin, and in 1998, the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In the same year, the French edition of his novel Gifts won the St Malo Literature Festival's prize. In addition, Farah is a perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Reviews

[Namrirru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intense and captivating.

I am conflicted. The characters are so endearing and believable that the thought of them being "made up" is heartbreaking. Nevertheless, it is an excellent book.

Social roles: mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, uneducated, educated, religious, secular, conservative, liberal, rich, poor, tribal, national. They're all subtley woven together. This book is a work of art.

[David Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is your secret entrance into daily life in Somalia. Tea-drinking required.

[Becki Iverson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book as the first in our Around the World in 80 Books book club and I really enjoyed it. It's the first work by a Somali author that I've read and I hope to continue on with the rest of this book series. There is so much pain and passion included in this book and you can feel it throbbing through the pages. Loyaan's story is one of searching tragedy and definitely digs into you as you read. It's very hard to read this book without drawing multiple parallels, both with our current politics in America and in many of the refugee crises we see around the world today. Somalia's political problems began many years ago now so many people in the west have forgotten what transpired there; the tragedy of this is that the situation continues to be very difficult for Somali citizens worldwide, and also has provided a template for chaos which we now see repeating in other world territories. The gift of Sweet and Sour Milk is making Somalia's history feel very personal and accessible to the modern reader. I'd encourage anyone who wants a personal look inside Somalia to read this book. It will definitely leave you with a lot to think about.

[Old Man JP · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a young man trying to uncover the truth behind his twin brothers mysterious death in what seems to be a retaliatory execution by the regime he opposed. Somalia has been taken over by a military junta aided by the Russians and the young mans brother was a leader of the opposition. However, the regime has been praising the dead brother as a hero of the government in spite of his activities. This leads the young man into a dangerous quest to correct this misrepresentation. The book was written in a very poetic prose and exposed the outrageous behaviour of the previous European colonists as well as the harsh dictatorial regimes that replaced them.

[Aquavit · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Africa, for nearly a century, was governed with the iron hand of European colonial economic interests: these ran Africa as though it were a torture-chamber. Africa has known the iron rod, the whiplash, thumb-screwing and removing of testicles: Africa has been humiliated one way or another. I am not saying anything new if I add that whether British, French, Belgian, Spanish, Portugese or Italian, the colonial mafiadoms which, on behalf of the civilised world, administered the colonies barbarously, savagely, never considered it expedient to allow the same democratic rights as they themselves had, both in their own countries and in their privileged positions as rulers, viceroys or governors. For the colonies, they created a small elite that, in a world of make-believe behaved as though they were on a par with their European classmates, their university colleagues. But wait.
...
Are you saying that Africa is the same or nearly the same torture-chamber as it was when the colonials were here? Or are you saying that African dictatorships are but a re-creation of the same methods and things these career-soldiers learned from their colonial masters during the toughest struggles?"

"Or something like that."

Stylistically this book is something of a prose poem. Nights slither like snakes, days break open. Politically, this is an indictment of the failures of petty despot dictators (Mohamed Siad Barre Jaale Siiyad in fact - though the plot does not follow history exactly - who seized power and formed a military junta with the assistance of China and the Soviet Union based on the ideology of 'scientific socialism'), who like the colonials before them, cloak themselves in academic and religious morality while carrying out the same barbarisms learned from colonial times. Worse still, it is an indictment of the people who permit it to happen with inactivity, with lack of education (to wit, the part about the General surrounding himself with illiterates in order to force all 'security' business to be conducted via oral tradition in order that no paper trail be created) and beast-of-burden acceptance. There's a wincing exchange that takes place between a butcher and a goat that just wraps up the whole plot in one succinct page: the General is the butcher, the people of Somalia his goat that he prods, threatens, mistreats with the knowledge that he's just going to kill it in an hour anyway, but he has to remind it of its place.

Farah doesn't spare the colonials, and he doesn't spare modern nation-states who continue to meddle just as hamfistedly, if not quite so openly, in the political spectrum (the Chinese cigarette and match factory, the Soviet Marxist 'help' by training the Security forces in KGB tactics).

And Farah doesn't stop there - he also laments the plight of women, both as victims of political torture, social subjugation and religious/educational inequality. This is a dense, thoughtful book and I think the heavy handed poetic prose is the only thing that keeps you somewhat detached from the abject horror of what he's describing.

[Nambou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliantly written with a fascinating plot. Sweet and Sour Milk is the first novel in Farah's Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship trilogy. It chronicles the quest on the reasons behind the mysterious death of the main character's twin brother. However, this book shall not be read with the end goal in mind: who killed the brother? For it is not a crime novel, rather it is a poignant commentary of Somalia's social, religious and political realities in the 70s.

"Somalia is a prison. We are the prisoners; the Security, the Green Guards, are the jailers; and the General, the Grand Warder of them all." (p. 210 Sweet and Sour Milk)

[Sorin Hadârcă · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent literature! I agree when Farah is compared to Garcia Marquez (I think the Autumn of the Patriarch is meant here) and Solzhenitsyn. However, when Solzhenitsyn provides account for and witnesses the events, Farah adds structure, draws laws of the phenomena and searches for solutions. I think it's a great piece of dissident literature and I am ready for the next books in the trilogy and beyond it.

[Matteo]

A beautiful and terrible book, for how it's written and for what's written in it. The author is able to communicate the emotions and the psychological condition of whoever lives under a dictatorship. Reading it gives a sensation of sickness and fever, as the real people of Somalia should have felt during the long Siade Barre total regime. It's such a difficult task to accomplish, but Farah plunged his pen in the very painful and inhuman condition of his people and gave his book a universal value. To advise the universe of what dictatorship really means.

[Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gripping, intense yet slow.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing was good but plot and pacing were rough. Going to try the next in the series which sounds more compelling.

[a ⚡️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. I can’t believe it doesn’t have a 5.0 rating.

[yb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too repetitious and self-conscious to be completely engaging, but still a fascinating read. It is dated, dealing as it does with Soviet influence across Africa, and yet sadly still quite timely in recounting the overwhelming damage done by a self-aggrandizing African dictator to ordinary people who love their country. More importantly, its exploration of the bonds between brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, lovers and tribesmen is beautiful, heartbreaking, and timeless. Not an easy novel to get through, but largely enjoyable.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, but the writing style wasn't my cup of tea. I don't like poetry, and it seemed overly poetic to me. I should have read the back - where the author is compared to Solzhenitsyn and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'm not crazy about their books either.

[Ghennet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sweet and souer milk covers the dictatorship and resistance in Somalia.

[Ben Vigeant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

[Katerina · Rating 1 out of 5]

fantastic political novel

[Impetuousxsquirrel · Rating 5 out of 5]

when the whole world embraces a shared lie, you start to doubt yourself

[Hanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good! very interesting and intriguing. I'm going straight to Amazon to buy the rest of the trilogy.

[F · Rating 3 out of 5]

one of those books that I can appreciate for its impact and historical significance, but it doesn't mean that makes reading it any more enjoyable.