From a Crooked Rib
SynopsisPlot
Ebla, an orphan of eighteen, runs away from her nomadic encampment in rural Somalia when she discovers that her grandfather has promised her in marriage to an older man. But even after her escape to Mogadishu, she finds herself as powerless and dependent on men as she was out in the bush. As she is propelled through servitude, marriage, poverty, and violence, Ebla has to fight to retain her identity in a world where women are "sold like cattle."
Story
About this book
Ebla is eighteen, an orphan living among nomadic herders in rural Somalia. When she learns that her grandfather has arranged her marriage to an older man, she flees. Her escape takes her from the bush toward the capital, Mogadishu, where she hopes to find independence. Instead, she encounters new forms of control. Men in the city prove no less willing to decide her future than the elders she left behind.
The novel follows Ebla through servitude, poverty, marriage, and violence as she tries to hold on to her own sense of self. Farah presents a society in which women can be exchanged like property, and Ebla's repeated attempts to claim her own choices meet resistance at every turn. The story moves between rural and urban Somalia, and the contrast between the two settings sharpens without simplifying the pressures Ebla faces.
From a Crooked Rib was Nuruddin Farah's first novel. Written from Ebla's perspective throughout, it stays close to her observations and inner reasoning. Farah, who was born in Baidoa in what is now southern Somalia, went on to write extensively about Somali life, politics, and displacement. This opening work established his attention to the specific constraints placed on women within the social structures he portrayed.
