Crossbones

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is a work of fiction, set against the background of actual events whose retelling I’ve layered with a membrane of my own invention, and all the characters populating its pages have their origins in my imagination.

In writing it, I’ve borrowed from numerous sources and on occasion relied on interviews I conducted in Puntland and in Mogadiscio between the end of December 2008 and the end of February 2011. Among the many texts I’ve read, consulted, or borrowed from are “Nine Journalists Killed in Somalia” (Africa News, 2009); “Somali Canadian Journalist Killed” (CBS News, August 11, 2007); “Even in Exile Somali Journalists Face Death” (The Christian Science Monitor, August 12, 2007); “Somalia Journalist: ‘I Saw My Boss Dead’” (BBC, June 19, 2009); “Gunmen Assassinate Prominent Somali Journalist” (CNN, February 4, 2009); “Fifth Journalist Killed This Year” (Committee to Protect Journalists, June 8, 2009); Eric Schmitt and Jeffery Gettleman’s “U.S. Says Strike Kills Leader of a Somali Militia Suspected of Ties to Al Qaeda” (The New York Times, May 2, 2008); “Recruited for Jihad” (Newsweek, January 24, 2009); Richard Matthew’s “Recruited for Jihad? What Happened to Mustafa Ali?” (Minneapolis Star Tribune, February 9, 2009); Abdisaid M. Ali’s “The Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahidiin: A profile of the First Somali Terrorist Organization” (Institut für Stategie- Politik- Sicherheits- und Wirtschaftsberatung, Berlin, 2008); Steve Bloomfield’s “Anger at U.S. ‘Rendition’ of Refugees Who Fled Somalia” (The Independent, March 23, 2007); Muslim Human Rights Forum’s Horn of Terror: Report of U.S.-Led Mass Extraordinary Renditions from Kenya to Somalia and Ethiopia and Guantánamo Bay — January to June 2007—Presented to the National Commission on Human Rights on July 2007; Talal Asad On Suicide Bombing (Columbia University Press, 2007); Somali Customary Law and Traditional Economy: Cross-Sectional, Pastoral, Frankincense and Marine Norms (Puntland Development Research Centre, 2003); Nigel Cawthorne’s Pirates of the 21st Century: How Modern-Day Buccaneers Are Terrorising the World’s Oceans (John Blake, 2009); David Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag (Random House, 1996); Abdirahman Jama Kulmiye’s “Militia vs Trawlers: Who Is the Villain?” (The East African, 2001); “Speedboats v Warships: Why Piracy Works” (The Sydney Morning Herald, November 19, 2008); Michael Scott Moore’s “What Are Those Ships Doing off the Coast of Somalia” (Miller-McCune, November 18, 2009); Clive Schofield’s “Who’s Plundering Who?” (Conservengland, November 23, 2008); Clive Schofield’s Plundered Waters: Somalia’s Maritime Resource Insecurity in Crucible of Survival, edited by Timothy Doyle and Melissa Risely (Rutgers University Press, 2008); “Somali Piracy Began in Response to Illegal Fishing and Toxic Dumping by Western Ships off the Somali Coast” (DemocracyNow.org, April 14, 2009); Andrew Harding’s “Postcard from Somali Pirate Capital” (BBC, June 16, 2009); Mary Harper’s “Life in Somalia’s Piracy Town” (BBC, September 18, 2008); Najad Abdullah’s “Toxic Waste Behind Somali Piracy” (Al Jazeera, October 11, 2008); Mohamed Adow’s “Somalia’s Trafficking Boomtown” (BBC, April 28, 2004); Robyn Hunter’s “Somali Pirates Living the High Life” (BBC, October 28, 2008) and “How Do You Pay a Pirate’s Ransom” (BBC, December 3, 2008); “Pirate ‘Washes Ashore with Cash’” (BBC, January 12, 2009); Daniel Heller-Roazen’s The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations (Zone Books, 2009); Mary Harper’s “Chasing the Somali Piracy Money Trail” (BBC, May 24, 2009); “This Is London — The Capital of Somali Pirates’ Secret Intelligence Operation” (The Guardian, unsigned, May 11, 2009); Chris Green’s “Mystery of ‘Hijacked’ Cargo Ship Deepens” (The Independent, August 18, 2009); Cahal Milmo’s “Insurance Firms Plan Private Navy to Take On Somali Pirates” (The Independent, September 28, 2010); Daniel Howden’s “The Jailed Pirates That Nobody Wants” (The Independent, April 14, 2009).

I am grateful to many people, who, playing host to me or serving as guides or bodyguards, facilitated my travels in Somalia so that I could do my research in a secure, friendly environment. My special thanks go to the director of the Growe Puntland Development and Research Center, Abdurhman A. Shuke and his staff; to Said Farah Mahmoud and his wife, Faduma; to Hussein H. M. Boqor in Bosaso; to Hawa Aden in Galkayo; to Hussein Koronto in Eyl. In Newcastle, where I held a Leverhulme Professorship in the 2010 spring term, my thanks go to Linda Anderson, the director of the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts. Lastly, my thanks and love go to Anna and William Colaiace, Lois Vossen and Jay Bryon, Paula Rabinowitz, and David Bernstein.

Need I add that I alone am responsible for the opinions expressed in this novel and for any infelicities or misinterpretations?

Nuruddin Farah

March 2011