Marco Medugno’s Literature of the Somali Diaspora: Space, Language and Resistance in Somali Novels in English and Italian critically explores the Somali sociopolitical situation through a range of texts with particular attention to post-2000 novels that address the civil war and its aftermath. By offering a comparative, transnational, and multilingual examination of the network between texts, authors, and contexts, Medugno argues that “Somali authors contemplate an urban and cosmopolitan ethos that can unite citizens, bridging divisions rooted in clan ideology and social fragmentation ‘to recalibrate the vision of Somalia along the more positive lines of the moral nationhood inscribed by the concept of Soomaalinimo’” (3). In five chapters, the book explores three main themes - spatiality, multilingualism, and resistance - in Somali diaspora texts, while also advancing several important interventions through its analysis. .
The book’s originality lies in foregrounding the sociopolitical history of Somalia not only in the introduction but throughout all chapters, tracing developments from Siyaad Barre’s regime and the civil war to the different political conditions of the present day, while situating the novels within their historical contexts. In doing so, Medugno positions the novel genre, and particularly the diaspora novel, as a tool and conduit for self-reflection and self-questioning about the past, the postwar present, and possible futures.
Another key strength of the analysis is its attention to the longue durée of Italian colonialism, its legacy, and its material presence in Somalia, which is usually overlooked in discussions of the colonial powers. The book further reveals the complex integration of Somalis as formerly colonized people in Italy, where they are confronted with racism, hostility, and border control. In the first two chapters focused on spatiality, the analysis presents urban spaces—Mogadishu and Rome—as complex places with paradoxical natures, alongside non-lieux such as Mogadishu’s Bakhaaraha and Tamarind Markets and Rome’s Stazione Termini. These places function not only as sites of mobility and consumption but also as sites of Somali diasporic identity formation.
Particularly compelling in the work is the expansion of several concepts, including non-lieux, multilingualism, orature, supermodern and anthropological places, and impegno. The study moves these concepts beyond their dominant definitions by examining how Somali texts complicate and articulate them. In Chapter Three, Medugno argues that Nuruddin Farah’s use of multilingualism in Links and Crossbones is a discursive strategy and a marker of sociopolitical and historical shifts in Somalia. Here, the author defines multilingualism beyond the boundaries of language hierarchies and relationship between colonial languages and the language(s) of the formerly colonized. Equally, Chapter Four suggests reading orature beyond a marker of African authenticity and Africanness, instead presenting it as a tool for contextualization, for avoiding generalization, and as an influence on prose. The discussion in Chapter Five examines the idea of commitment or impegno, not only as a responsibility of the writer to society but also as an intervention at the sociopolitical level through direct engagement with readers on contemporary issues. The concept of commitment also serves to describe the relationship and continuity between two literary traditions - Italian postcolonial literature and Resistance Literature. Nevertheless, the reevaluations of these concepts would benefit from more in-depth analysis to demonstrate them fully through the texts. The analysis seems rather illustrative than demonstrative at times.
Through its comparative and diachronic approach, the book serves as a counter-discourse to dominant representations of Somalia in Western media by highlighting the country’s historical, cultural, and political layers, from the precolonial past to the most recent global and neocolonial dynamics. The book also relates the persistent presence of the past in the present, emphasizing the impact of unresolved and irresolvable histories on contemporary Somalia. In analyzing the book’s central themes, Medugno repeatedly invokes the role of the past in shaping the present, showing the enduring effects of its unresolved nature.
The book also positions the works of Somali diasporic authors Igiaba Scego and Ubax Cristina Ali Farah within the Italian postcolonial literary production. Medugno argues that although Somali Italian authors have been situated at the intersection of transcultural and transnational influences, including Anglophone, Francophone, and Latin American literatures, they have been regarded as “unrelated” to Italian literature despite its influence on the Somali diasporic novel.
As the book delves into identity and belonging in the diaspora, it frequently returns to Somalia, particularly Mogadishu. Thus, even as it investigates these themes, it examines how the local is transnationally mediated in the diaspora. Besides, the text attempts to unravel the complexity of the designation “Somalia,” highlighting its distinctiveness as both a nation and a state. However, this question remains unresolved, just as the authors discussed leave it unresolved in their texts. Yet, these authors reveal how clannism functions as a problematic practice in Somali postindependence history while articulating their discourse through the lost idea of nationhood and kinship.
