I really wish I knew more about the history of Somalia in order to make more allegorical  sense of Farah Nurruddin’s novel “Maps,” a part of his Blood in the Sun trilogy.

 Askar Cali-Xamari’s father died fighting for the independence of his area of Somalia,  the day before Askar was born. These events  occurred in the Somali-Ethiopian conflict of 1977. His mother died during or very shortly after childbirth. So Askar was found tiny snd alone, apparently conscious of being, exploring his body and staring by a woman named Misra, his aunt. Misra became Askar’s surrogate mother and kept him until he went away to school. During these years she kept him very close, holding him, sleeping with him, sharing all with him to the effect that his self-identity was in question.  The problem is that the young Askar wants, needs, to be a man because there is a war going on in which his father died a hero. And there’s also the troubling fact that Misra is ethnically Ethiopian.  >>>>MORE>>>>