LAUSR

Abstract This paper examines Nuruddin Farah’s 2011 novel Crossbones. It argues that Farah subverts the techniques of crime fiction in order to emphasise the difficulty of describing Somalia in terms of a single narrative, and that the novel’s chaotic “unfinished” form represents a resistance to binary and Orientalist media discourses about the country. It demonstrates that the dissolution of structure, characterisation and the generic expectations of crime fiction in the novel represents a resistance to the idea of the outlaw state. The paper discusses the text’s use of rumours, the role and efficacy of the text’s “detective” figures in post-collapse Somalia, and the novel’s treatment of piracy. It argues that the novel’s detective figures represent national allegories within the text, and that their frustration and breakdown suggests the elusiveness and complexity of Somali identity in the postcolonial and post-collapse era.