<div><b>Winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature</b><br><br>Farah's landmark <i>Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship</i> trilogy is comprised by the novels <i>Sweet and Sour Milk</i>, <i>Sardines</i>, and <i>Close Sesame</i>. In this volume, the second of the three, a woman loses her job as editor of the national newspaper and then finds her efforts to instill her daughter with a sense of dignity and independence threatened by an oppressive government and the traditions of conservative Islam.<br><br><i>Sardines</i> brilliantly combines a social commentary on life under a dictatorship with a compassionate exploration of African feminist issues.<br></div>