This is a story of a somali girl in postcolonial somalia and her experience as a poor, single female in somalia. The story tells the story of how a somali girl, born into the interverain area of Italian Somaliland in 1952, maneuvered herself-and was maneuvered by circumstances-into prostitution. It is a harsh and facinating story, stituated in a society undergoing rapid and unregulated urbanization, governed (after independece in 1960) by a corrupt male elite of nouveau riches, and characterized by gread, social inequality based on wealth, political, clan affiliation, and gender.
Aman is the intimate first-person account of a young woman's coming-of-age in Somalia. The daughter of tribal leaders, Aman recounts her dramatic life with stark simplicity and winning candour: an innocent childhood romance with a white boy that leads to murder; her circumcision 'ceremony'; an unwanted marriage at the age of thirteen; and her daring escape to the city where her beauty and curiosity lead her into a world of white men, parties, and runaway girls.
Aman takes the reader beyond the headlines of a war-torn country to tell the true story of what life is like for a woman in Somalia. As in Wild Swans by Jung Chang, Aman vividly evokes another way of life, while at the same time illuminating the female experience everywhere.
Def an interesting read.
