Trajectories of radicalization and resilience in Nuruddin Farah’s North of Dawn

Abstract

Situated within a body of writing that is preoccupied with engagement with terrorism, this article considers the ways in which Nuruddin Farah’s novel, North of Dawn (2018), explores trajectories of radicalization and resilience to violent extremism. Written from an interdisciplinary cultural migration studies perspective, the article understands violent extremism as a complex networked phenomenon. It makes an original contribution by highlighting the role of belonging in trajectories of radicalization and resilience, bringing sociological studies of radicalized violence and resilience to such violence into dialogue with a cosmopolitan literary framework including the works of other diasporic Somali background European writers such as Cristina Ali Farah and Igiaba Scego.

Keywords: radicalization to violent extremism, resilience, Nuruddin Farah, belonging, conviviality, fascism.