What Farah's characters reveal is the precipitous slope down which, more often than not, communities and nations tend to slide in times of war. ...he has succeeded to give victims of the civil war a platform on which their shattered humanity could be reassessed. ...in Mogadishu, when Ebla commits the polyandric act, the wife of her "second" husband (Tiffo) is supported by a female support group who terrorize husbands and their secret lovers. (The theme of creating alternative forms of family reaches a crescendo in the make-up of Kalaman in Secrets, to be discussed later.) This shows how Farah's works share thematic concerns, and how they form a catena, as well as how Farah, through a form of austere vision, resurrects things, characters, and concepts in a multiplicity of ways and for various reasons.