Fartumo Kusow
Set in Somalia just before the civil war, Tale of a Boon’s Wife by Fartumo Kusow is the story Idil, the daughter of a general, who falls in love with Sidow, a man considered beneath her family’s social status. She defies her father’s threats and her mother’s pleas by eloping with him. This sets off a series of tragic events, including her displacement, the murder of her husband, her rape, and her betrayal by her brother and father. Idil endures each tragedy with stoic resolve and a determination to survive. She eventually finds refuge for herself and her family by emigrating from war-ravaged Somalia.
The backdrop for Idil’s story is the gradual buildup of the Somali civil war. Murder, rape, bribery, corruption, poverty, desperation, and tragedy are rampant. Young boys toting machine guns roam the streets. Family members disappear. Young women are kidnapped, raped, or forced into marriages with one militia leader or another.
Kusow tells a powerful story. Using unadorned, simple diction, she lets the details speak for themselves. She depicts Somali culture and tradition with its blend of Islam and its indigenous belief in the power of spells and magic. Through Idil and her experience, we witness the deleterious effects of a rigidly hierarchical caste-based system, gender stratification, the subjugation of women, brutality, and a never-ending lust for power that propels the country into even more civil unrest and violence.
Kusow demonstrates that when a country runs amok, the ramifications are experienced in every fiber of society. A traumatized population struggles to survive in the absence of the checks and balances of civil society. There is no rule of law, no recourse for justice, and what governance there is takes place at the end of a machine gun.
This is a haunting portrayal of Somali life leading up to the civil war. What emerges from the horror and the brutality is the resilience of the people, their determination to survive and to cling to the hope that the cycle of violence will end sooner rather than later.
Recommended.