# Secrets (1998) by Nuruddin Farah: a family mystery on the eve of the civil war

> Nuruddin Farah's Secrets (1998): its story of Kalaman, Sholoongo and his family on the eve of the war, its narrators, its trilogy and how reviewers read it.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/books/secrets-farah/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
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## The book

**Secrets** is a novel by **[Nuruddin Farah](/en/people/nuruddin-farah/)**, the Somali writer born in Baidoa in 1945. It was published by Arcade in New York on 1 May 1998 ([Kirkus Reviews](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nuruddin-farah/secrets-4/)). The same year Farah received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuruddin_Farah)).

## The story

The novel is set in Mogadishu in the week before the outbreak of the civil war, and opens with scenes from about twenty-five years earlier in a village ([Kirkus Reviews](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nuruddin-farah/secrets-4/); [Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781559704854)).

Its central character is **Kalaman**, who at 33 owns a computer company and is reluctant to marry his girlfriend and start a family. He was raised with close care by his grandfather, **Nonno**, while his widowed mother, **Damac**, urges him to marry. His life is unsettled when **Sholoongo**, an older girl who was his companion and tormentor in childhood, returns from America, where she has become known as a "shape-shifter" with magical powers, and asks Kalaman to father her child ([Kirkus Reviews](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nuruddin-farah/secrets-4/)).

Her return brings long-hidden family secrets to the surface, among them a stolen birth certificate and a secret marriage, which are revealed in later chapters narrated by Nonno, Damac and Sholoongo. Kalaman is forced to see how closely private and political life are bound together. The novel includes animal fables, riddles and parables ([Kirkus Reviews](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nuruddin-farah/secrets-4/)). One publisher description calls it a portrait of a family breaking apart like its country, its ties dissolved by exposed lies ([Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781559704854)). The background is on [The Siad Barre era, 1969 to 1991](/en/history/siad-barre-era-1969-1991/).

## The trilogy

*Secrets* is the third novel of Farah's **Blood in the Sun** trilogy, following *Maps* (1986) and *Gifts* (1992). ([Kirkus Reviews](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nuruddin-farah/gifts/)).

## How it was received

- Kirkus Reviews called it "an enthralling psychodrama" and "a genuine—and genuinely disturbing—mystery" ([Kirkus Reviews](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nuruddin-farah/secrets-4/)).
- On NPR, the critic Alan Cheuse described its characters as well drawn and the novel as a witty comedy of manners ([NPR](https://www.npr.org/1998/06/24/1034724/secrets)).

## Where to read it

- Editions: [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8858192W)
- In a library: [WorldCat](https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=Secrets+Nuruddin+Farah)

## Related pages

- [Maps (1986), Nuruddin Farah](/en/books/maps-farah/)
- [Links (2003), Nuruddin Farah](/en/books/links-farah/)
- [Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), Nuruddin Farah](/en/books/sweet-and-sour-milk-farah/)

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