You are a human animal. You are a very special breed, for you are the only animal, who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello, and welcome to Bookworm.

This is Michael Silverblatt, and today I'm honored to have as my guest, a Somalian writer,

Nuruddin Farah.

He is the author most recently of Secrets, published by Arcade Books,

and will be speaking primarily of that a trilogy of his books. Sardines, Coes, Sesame,

sweet and sour milk were published here by Grey Wolf Press, and Secrets itself, as I understand,

the culmination of a trilogy that began with a book called Maps,

continued with gifts, and the third is Secrets.

Now, I want to let listeners know that this is a special event for me

because some 12 years ago, I was talking to Grace Paley.

Now, if you know Grace Paley and her work, you will also know how excited I am whenever I'm talking to her. And I always ask her to recommend books to me because who wouldn't want to read anything Grace Paley loves? And for the longest time, the book that Paley would always mention to me was Maps, by my guest,

Nuruddin Fara, a magnificent book, but Secrets, his newest, is equally magnificent.

And I wanted to begin by conferring the special beneficence of Grace

Paley on the occasion of this interview. Like Grace's work, the adult comes from the child.

It's very much the childhood miracle and wonder that gives rise to the adults of

these novels. And I wonder if we could start by speaking about childhood as a locus point.

Yes, well, perhaps it makes sense to think that it's only when you are older, or rather the older you get, the clearer your childhood becomes.

And the reason is because distance distills, distance enables you to see certain things with clarity

because you're no longer threatened by your childhood anymore.

And then since by the time you get to my age, I'm now about 53, you can reinvent your life through fiction

by revisiting some of the aspects of your childhood.

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