Bearing in mind that literary canonization "has a lot to do with publishing and educational power", Willemse concludes that the relative neglect of Farah is hardly surprising in the "quotidian processes of canonization" (Willemse and Moolla). ...the theme issue was commissioned as a response to this scenario, but also in an attempt to redress a perceived imbalance in the literary "knowledge economy" where "the best and most consistent training and publication of African literature" occurs in the global north, with the input of major African critics, writers and resources. ...transformed ways of thinking about Farah are a challenge presented by the author himself who, despite continuities, has struck out in alternative directions in his recent writing, and work in progress. The constitutive creative matrix of a nomadic desert environment, refracted by orality, Islam and Arab culture, as well as common social concerns regarding the relationship between the truths of story and the political mononarratives of postcolonial tyrannies joins these writers into an alliance forged by similar alembics of personal formation, literary styles and social considerations. Given the focus on women in his work and his politics, why has Farah not been drawn into the center of current debates in African feminism and/or womanism, drawing his work into a sustained conversation with that of Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Ama Ata Aidoo, Mariama Bâ, and Bessie Head-a writer whose preoccupations and modes of writing could not be more similar to those of Farah?