Audiobook11 hours
Hiding in Plain Sight
Written by Nuruddin Farah
Narrated by Robin Miles
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
From an acclaimed African writer, a novel about family, freedom, and loyalty. When Bella learns of the murder of her beloved half brother by political extremists in Mogadiscio, she's in Rome. The two had different fathers but shared a Somali mother, from whom Bella's inherited her freewheeling ways. An internationally known fashion photographer, dazzling but aloof, she comes and goes as she pleases, juggling three lovers. But with her teenage niece and nephew effectively orphaned - their mother abandoned them years ago-she feels an unfamiliar surge of protective feeling. Putting her life on hold, she journeys to Nairobi, where the two are in boarding school, uncertain whether she can-or must-come to their rescue. When their mother resurfaces, reasserting her maternal rights and bringing with her a gale of chaos and confusion that mirror the deepening political instability in the region, Bella has to decide how far she will go to obey the call of sisterly responsibility. A new departure in theme and setting for "the most important African novelist to emerge in the past twenty-five years" (The New York Review of Books) Hiding in Plain Sight, is a profound exploration of the tensions between freedom and obligation, the ways gender and sexual preference define us, and the unexpected paths by which the political disrupts the personal.
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Reviews for Hiding in Plain Sight
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
11 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lyrically beautiful story of Bella, a famous photographer, returning to Nairobi to care for her niece and nephew after the death of her beloved older brother. The descriptive quality was excellent - geography, city life, and food came alive, for example. I loved the photography, and how Bella elected to use it to develop a stronger bond with her charges. The teenaged children were well drawn with distinct and nicely nuanced characters. However, there is a strange distance between the reader and the adults in the story, whose emotions seemed strangely sterile. While the story had the potential for much drama, it was really very narrative and calm. At times it seemed to be driving towards some decision, but it ended with no climax and only assumed resolution. Much to like, but there was a potential for more.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When War is killed by a suicide bomber, or maybe a directed hit, his sister Bella, a renowned photographer returns to Kenya to care for her beloved brother's children. Valerie the children's mother had left War for another woman years before.My reactions to this novel are very mixed. I enjoyed all the discussions on photography, as many of the characters are displaced Somaliland I liked reading about how they are judged in the country they fled to after the Civil War in Somalia. They also discuss the different food influences in their cuisines. When the children's mother reappears with her female partner, this provides the tension in the story as she originally attempts to get close to her children with the hope that they will choose to live with her and her partner.What I had trouble with was the language, which delta stilted at times and the distance I felt from the characters. Also felt the ending was very abrupt and anti-climatic. So while I found the main story interesting enough to keep reading, I just expected more. So I would recommend this to readers who want to read about the Somalia refugee experience in Kenya and a family story that was somewhat different.ARC from publisher.