Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora

by Nuruddin Farah

The story of the international refugees created by the political tyranny of post-colonial Somalia. The author, an established Somali novelist who went into exile as a form of protest, has interviewed Somalis in Africa and Europe to provide this portrait of how people react, are wounded, how they survive, change and even thrive when they flee their homes and are turned into refugees. It shows how the refugees see themselves and how the host countries treat refugees. It reveals how refugees have adapted, or failed to adapt, to different countries and how their lives became disrupted and recreated as a result of politics and economics. Although it focuses on a particular people, the work should help readers to understand the experiences of people forced by mass migrations to live fragmented lives in the post-modern era of rapid change.

Genres: Nonfiction, Africa, African Literature

198 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2000

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

[CTEP]

Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora, by Nuruddin Farah, is an eloquent, thorough collection of observations and interviews conducted with Somali refugees and other expatriates in their journeys from a wartorn homeland into countries that are never fully their new homes. The interviews are retold from the perspective of the author himself, who was not present when the civil war broke out in Somalia and, despite being of Somali birth and upbringing, was an outsider among the refugees. Farah is highly aware of this, and is an insightful and compassionate guide to the refugees' varied experiences; he's conscious of his own limitations as an interviewer, and yet his perspective lets him draw out all the nuances of the different voices he interviews. This book starts in the confusion of the war itself, and the initial flight, and continues to the relatively settled refugee communities of the present day, where lives and livelihoods are still uncertain.

This book directly relates to my AmeriCorps service, since many of my coworkers and the majority of my clients are refugees from Somalia (and the general situation of refugees from almost any country is similar in certain ways to that of refugees from Somalia). I initially hoped I could read it and learn what my clients have been going through, but the most valuable thing I've learned is how little I could ever possibly know about their trials. The closest thing that I could compare what happened to Somali refugees to is the apocalyptic fiction that's so popular in the US--but what these people have lived through, and continue to live through, is worse than anything on our TV screens. It's terrifying and humbling.

I would recommend this to anyone who works with refugees, but be warned: it's really dense, and it's not at all clear what's happening sometimes, and this book takes time. You should probably be a little bit familiar with the history of the civil war in Somalia--Wikipedia will do--and, if you're lucky, you'll have a Somali/Somali-American friend who will explain the confusing parts to you. And there are a lot of confusing parts! The author, although writing for a Western audience, does not exactly spell things out for us, and it's easy to get bogged down in the richness and detail his writing has. Nevertheless, you're not going to hear these voices anywhere else; even if you work with Somali refugees or have friends from Somalia, it's going to be hard to broach the topic of the losses they have suffered, and there's no way you'd get the same depth of conversation that Farah gets, simply because you wouldn't know what questions to ask.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad accounts of the lives of Somali refugees escaping the rule of Siyad Barrel and struggling to reestablish their lives in other countries. Those most vulnerable should be protected and supported but are sadly often exploited. This book is important as the narrative of refugees is rarely told. The book provides an important reminder of the biases and power dynamic that we can have towards others, particularly those less fortunate when most in need. If only this provided more in-depth personal accounts instead of the light brushstrokes. Hope is an enduring quality of humanity however it can be so easily eroded with time.

[Zahrah Awaleh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great, especially for those who don't have second-hand knowledge about the Somali diaspora.