Abdi Latif Ega is a Somali novelist and scholar at Columbia University. His recent book, Guban, is a kaleidoscopic tale of the Somali revolution, which deftly interlocks stories of all strata of society-interlopers, interlocutors, diplomats, camel herders, revolutionaries, military personnel, and clan leaders, to name but a few. Documenting both the brutality of the national dictatorship and the international pressures of this cold war driven world. Guban brings together the immediacy of journalistic reportage with the imaginative expansiveness of the novel.
