... affecting ... The suspense that propels North of Dawn stems from this worry: Will the children be OK? ... The dialogue has a tendency toward awkward exposition, yet the patient clarity of Farah’s storytelling makes the cultures he depicts, and the history he outlines, easily comprehensible. His characters are beautifully drawn, their psychology complex. The pious Saafi, in particular, is fascinating to watch...
... we might expect high drama, but here, instead, is a nuanced, quietly devastating family soap opera ... There is indeed a weary tone to this book, relayed mainly through Mugdi: the exhausted, chronic grief of one who has witnessed his country implode like a dark star ... Farah is a deeply sophisticated writer, his prose almost aromatic, like rich, sweet Somali tea. The story exists in the ether between the words; nothing will be simplified or explained, and quiet dread mounts, page after page, though little plot propels it.
North of Dawn is bracingly honest about the difficulties of assimilation, the way hospitality curdles into condescension and gratitude sours into resentment ... [The idea that Muslim radicalism is one side of the coin of intolerance that’s gaining currency in liberal democracies] is such a timely, necessary argument, but I wish it were expressed more gracefully in these pages. North of Dawn suffers from a ramshackle quality one might expect from an exciting but not quite finished draft. There are strange gaps in the plot, and the prose sometimes slips into antique cliches ... And Farah’s characters sometimes speak in weirdly artificial ways ... The story Farah shows us through these characters’ derailed lives is more illuminating than anything they can explain to us.
Farah’s exploration of the challenges of assimilation is a worthy goal, but a fair number of plot elements remain underexplored in a story that unfolds more like a dramatic play than a novel, complete with sudden exits by key characters. Repeated allusions to the 1920s Norwegian classic Giants in the Earth, which tracks early Norwegian assimilation in North America, feel forced. Nevertheless, Farah offers a soulful look at the divide between zealous ideology and secularism.
Farah’s fierce intelligence and deep compassion result in a morally complex, deeply affecting novel ... By shifting points of view between several of the main characters — most notably Mugdi and Naciim — he offers contrasting perspectives on questions of home, belonging, and faith ... Farah goes a little too easy on Norwegian society. There are few instances in the book of overt racism, for example. Instead, in Farah’s vision, Norwegians are unerringly tolerant and exceedingly helpful to newcomers, despite the rise in xenophobia across the country in recent years ... Nevertheless, North of Dawn is a fine introduction to Farah’s work, and an important exploration of the devastating impacts of religious radicalization.
[Farah's] besieged-but-steadfast equanimity provides relatively safe haven from the prevailing tension and strife ... As one of the characters puts it, 'Art is a humanizer,' and Farah’s insistence on isolating the humanity in even the most difficult characters is a beacon of hope against fear and loathing.
Sacrifices depth for a rapid, lackluster jaunt through the complications of Somali immigrants in contemporary Norway ... The rush of events makes the novel disappointedly abrupt, and the difficulties of side characters (including the shallow treatment of Saafi’s trauma from being raped in a refugee camp) muddy an already convoluted plot. While Farah captures the struggles of Somalis navigating the space between European nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists, diffuse storytelling blunts the work’s impact.
