Giving and Receiving: Nuruddin Farah's Gifts, or, the Postcolonial Logic of Third World Aid

Woods, T. (2003). Giving and Receiving: Nuruddin Farah's Gifts, or, the Postcolonial Logic of Third World Aid. Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 38 (1), 91-112.

In addition to addresses to the Security Council of the United Nations,the gift can be located at the centre of current discussions of deconstruction, international politics, gender, ethics, philosophy, anthropology and economics. "Gifts" (1993), the second novel in the Somali writer Nuruddin Farah?s ??Blood in the Sun?? trilogy, unlocks a wide-ranging critique of the politics of postcolonial autonomy and dependency. After the sophisticated plot of mystery, self-consciousness and self-realization dealing with the intertwined politics of personal and national identity in "Maps", the first book in the trilogy, "Gifts" has a more straightforward plot that focuses on the developing love between the two principal protagonists: Duniya, a middle-aged nurse in Mogadiscio, the capital of Somalia, who is struggling to bring up her teenage son and daughters; and a wealthy friend Bosaaso, who has returned from the United States to offer his services to the Somali government.

Peer reviewed