The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Exile and Counterpoint in Farah's Maps

Taking as its starting point Edward Said's appropriation of the concept of counterpoint, late style, and exile in Culture and Imperialism and On Late Style, this essay examines the thematic and literary implications of Nuruddin Farah's counterpoint and exile, as manifested in Maps. More concretely, building on Said's secular and humanist examination of counterpoint, late style, and exile as embodying a form of musical, aesthetic and sociopolitical criticism and resistance, this essay examines the way in which Nuruddin Farah addresses the aesthetic and home in Somalia as a counterpoint to the dictatorial masculine oppression of the regime from a contrapuntal and exilic perspective. The theme of postcolonial transnational feminism as a contrapuntal sign of resistance and late style is examined and interrogated in Farah's Maps in various ways. I investigate contrapuntally the way in which Somalian women, as portrayed in Farah's selected works, stand up to challenge the hegemonic patriarch and postcolonial regime in Somalia, as represented by the General Siad Barre and the oligarchy. Somalian female identity foregrounds itself in a pertinent and humanist way within a postcolonial feminist context.