A difficult read this one, mostly because it is dark, grey, very internal, with an oppressive government just looming behind everyone. Sardines follows the lives of Medina, who loses her job as the editor of the national newspaper of Somalia. She struggles to bring up her young daughter Ubax, as her friend Sagal is herself trying to figure out whether she wants to flee Somalia or take part in some subversive political action, and discovering that she might be pregnant. Farah tends towards metaphors and lyrical, but meandering prose, but Sardines was in the end an interesting, complex read. Sardines is part two of Farah’s Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship trilogy which also includes Sweet and Sour Milk and Close Sesame, which, judging from Sardines, can be read independently. ( )