Gifts: A Novel

Overview: The second novel in Nuruddin Farah's Blood in the Sun trilogy, Gifts is the beguiling tale of a Somali family and the struggles of its powerful matriarch to keep it whole. Duniya is a single mother, raising twins while working as a nurse in a Mogadiscio hospital. Her self-sufficient world is rocked when her rebellious daughter brings home a mysterious foundling infant. And when Duniya accepts a ride to work from a wealthy, romantically interested family friend, her whole life is turned upside down. War in Somalia transforms a simple village girl into a self-confident woman who even swims and drives a car. She is Duniya, a widow with three children. By an English-speaking writer, author of Maps