The Private Apartments

Idman Nur Omar’s new subtle short story collection … begins in 1991 and features multi-layered stories of Somali women dispersed to Europe and Canada by [civil war]. … Fans of Elena Ferrante would do well to seek out this collection.

Much to both marvel at and puzzle over. … Idman Nur Omar presents a vibrant diasporic culture of resilient individuals whose significance isn’t premised on their interactions with those in their adoptive place, whether that’s Rome, London, Amsterdam, Dubai or Toronto.

Idman Nur Omar’s stories have a prismatic and glittering brilliance. The Private Apartments spans the world, tracing the passageways that join one life to another in writing that is wise, clear-eyed, and bold. This astonishing collection heralds a major new talent.

The closely observed characters in these stories amount to a poignant work of short fiction that could also be called a novel. Idman Nur Omar’s light touch insightfully connects the start of the 1991 Somali Civil War with the forms of life that grow from uprootedness and struggle into lasting shape elsewhere. This work, spanning continents and two decades, reveals a writer of incisive narrative vulnerability and asks us to read her intimate graces as a storyteller with mature tenderness. The distinctive pleasures of The Private Apartments’ stories are waiting. Why not come in?

The Private Apartments absorbed me from the very beginning. Idman Nur Omar is a skilled writer, whose sensitive and stirring depiction of the lives of Somali immigrants calls to mind Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. I cared about these characters. I felt curious about them, gutted for them. I kept reading as much for the crisp, graceful writing and complicated, human portraits as to see what would happen next.

The Private Apartments invites you into the secret lives of Somali women who dare to migrate towards safety, solitude, and sometimes joy. It suggests that even across oceans, behind closed doors, and in every corner of every room, someone, somewhere, is boldly (read: messily) giving life another shot. Idman Nur Omar is cool and delicate on a prose level and generous in her belief that your neighbour is actually your friend, your sibling, your cousin, and the person you come home to. There is almost nothing private about being this intimately connected. I mourn for these women; I feel their guilt and pleasures as much as I celebrate them, as they are, in many strange and uncomfortably daring ways, versions of myself.

Idman Nur Omar’s remarkable debut tells stories of Somalis in the diaspora as they navigate complicated relationships, loss, and displacement with determination and wit. Omar writes with sensitivity, insight, and quiet assurance. The voices in these stories are sharp, vulnerable, and, at times, brash. A delightful read!