Novel
Ignorance is the Enemy of Love
Aqoondarro waa u nacab jacayl
Faarax M. J. Cawl · 1974
Synopsis
In the time of the Dervish war, Cawrala and Calimaax, both poets, travel on a ship that has left Aden for the north coast of Somalia. A storm sinks it and Calimaax saves Cawrala, who falls in love with him. But the young woman's father has already promised her to a rich, elderly man, and Calimaax, who serves the Dervish movement, goes to its headquarters at Taleex. Cawrala sends him a love letter in verse in Arabic; unable to read, he has it read by relatives of his wife, and its contents cause a scandal.
Context
The Ministry of Culture and Higher Education, convinced of its usefulness, took charge of publishing the novel in 1974, while the literacy campaign in the towns, in 1973 and 1974, preceded the one in the countryside. Drawn from a true story passed down orally and set between 1915 and 1917, the narrative inserts poems by recognised poets and verses that tradition attributes to its real-life characters; Cawrala, who can read and write, defends her own idea of love in it. Bogumił Andrzejewski translated it into English, with an introduction and notes, as Ignorance is the Enemy of Love, for Zed Press, in London, in 1982.
Who it is for
For those interested in the beginnings of the Somali novel, in which a love story is mixed with poems in the time of the dervishes.
Prizes and reception
It is regarded as the first novel published in the Somali language, two years after the adoption of its official script.
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