Madre piccola (2007) by Ubah Cristina Ali Farah: Little Mother, a novel of the Somali diaspora in Italy

The book

Madre piccola ("Little Mother") is the first novel of Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, who was born in Verona in 1973 to a Somali father and an Italian mother and grew up in Mogadishu until the war of 1991 (Wikipedia). It was published in Italian by Frassinelli in 2007. The English translation, Little Mother, by Giovanna Bellesia Contuzzi and Victoria Offredi Poletto, with an introduction by Alessandra Di Maio, was published by Indiana University Press in Bloomington in 2011 (WardheerNews, Lidwien Kapteijns review).

The title is a calque of a Somali word for a maternal aunt, a younger "little mother" (Powell's).

The story

When the civil war reaches Mogadishu in 1991, the cousins Domenica Axad and Barni are separated and forced to flee. Domenica Axad, the daughter of a Somali father and an Italian mother, tries to build an identity that is fully both Somali and Italian. Barni makes a living in Rome as a midwife. After about ten years the two women meet again, and when Domenica gives birth to a son, Barni is at her side; the novel ends with the cousins deciding to raise the boy together (Powell's; WardheerNews).

The novel has nine chapters, told as spoken monologues by three narrators: Domenica Axad, Barni and Taageere, a man who after his divorce marries Domenica, through whom the novel looks at Somali men trying to find a role in exile. It moves between Mogadishu in 1991 and the present, over more than fifteen years. Many Somali words are kept in the English edition and explained in a glossary (WardheerNews; World Literature Today).

Its themes

The historian Lidwien Kapteijns lists the novel's subjects as the life of Somali refugees in Italy in the first fifteen years after 1991, mixed Somali-Italian identity and statelessness, violence between clans and the blame it placed on whole groups, and changing roles of women and men in exile (WardheerNews). Somalis in Italy are covered on Somalis in Italy.

How it was received

• Lidwien Kapteijns, in the Canadian Journal of African Studies (2012), praised its structure and called Ali Farah "one of its most subtle thinkers and greatest writers", referring to the Somali diaspora. She also said the translators and the press "have done an excellent job" (WardheerNews).
• David Shook, in World Literature Today, called it a complicated but worthwhile book (World Literature Today).
• Ali Farah has received the Lingua Madre and Vittorini prizes (Wikipedia).

Where to read it

• In a library: WorldCat
• English edition: Powell's

Related pages

• Adua (2015), Igiaba Scego
• Somali authors and their books