North of Dawn

October 15, 2018
Farah (Links) sacrifices depth for a rapid, lackluster jaunt through the complications of Somali immigrants in contemporary Norway. Gacalo and Mugdi’s quiet life in Oslo is upended when their son perpetrates a suicide bombing in Somalia. Gacalo stretches legality to bring her son’s widow, Waliya, and stepchildren Naciim and Saafi to Norway as refugees. Waliya rejects encouragement from Gacalo, Gacalo’s daughter Timiro, and fellow immigrants to integrate into society, retreating into a devoted practice of Islam. Naciim excels at school and clashes with his mother over her growing attachment to an extremist imam suspected of terrorism. When the imam beats Naciim and is rapidly convicted of abuse, a tragedy befalls the family. Subsequent events lead Mugdi to an aimless detachment while Naciim’s increasing assimilation pulls him further from Waliya’s narrow worldview. The rush of events makes the novel disappointedly abrupt, and the difficulties of side characters (including the shallow treatment of Saafi’s trauma from being raped in a refugee camp) muddy an already convoluted plot. While Farah captures the struggles of Somalis navigating the space between European nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists, diffuse storytelling blunts the work’s impact.