Given its setting—Somalia in the mid-1980s—Gifts is a strikingly upbeat, almost comic novel. Farah is determined to present a portrait of his country and its people which contradicts many Western preconceptions about it. Through the story of Duniya, a nurse and the once-widowed, once-divorced mother of three children, Farah depicts a country which has been hindered, not helped, by foreign aid—a people whose future may lie in refusing, not accepting, gifts. Farah's prose has an admirable deftness of touch, and I'll definitely be seeking out works of his in the future. ( )