"The Somali novelist and playwright Nuruddin Farah (b. 1945) has lived in exile since 1974, and much of his writing is concerned with the impact that years of military dictatorship (primarily that of Siyad Barre) have had on the lives of ordinary Somalis. Farah's best-known novels - From a Crooked Rib (1970), Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), Maps (1986), and Gifts (1990) - have made him an influential presence in postcolonial literature, one whose political commitment and opposition to authoritarianism are much admired throughout the world. Farah is also known for writing sensitively about women, sometimes from a woman's point of view. He is the 1998 winner of the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature." "Patricia Alden and Louis Tremaine's lucid and engaging study examines all of Farah's novels and plays and offers a comparative analysis of each text with Farah's work as a whole."--Jacket.