African Book Week: From a Crooked Rib

From a Crooked Rib

From a Crooked Rib is the first published novel by Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah.

Overview

Published in 1970, the novel is a bildungsroman and was the 80th novel in the Heineman African Writers Series. The novel was originally composed while Farah was a student in India during 1968. The British publisher who first edited the novel was surprised the novelist was a man, because the novel closely follows the perspective of an orphaned woman and her coming of age.

Reception

Reflecting on the novel in 2006, New York Times critic Elsa Dixler called the novel "a young writer’s novel, with an intermittently shaky point of view and language that can be awkward, but it demonstrates Farah’s extraordinary ability to enter the consciousness of an unsophisticated woman."

References

Dixler, Elsa (2006-11-26). "Fiction Chronicle". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.