THE PROPHETIC FORCE OF FANON'S WRITING HAS ATTRACTED VARIOUS commentators concerned with the peculiarities of postcolonial state formation. In the case of Somalia during the latter stages of Barre's regime, the warnings he issued about the dangers of political nepotism would prove particularly apt. In 1986, the year Maps was published, Barre was returned to power with a purported 99.9% of the vote (Lewis 2002: 255). Fanon imagines precisely such a scenario in ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness’ (Fanon 2001: 146). Throughout what follows, I argue that his legacy casts a significant shadow over Maps. In Hilaal, Farah has created a pseudo-Fanonian character who researches ‘the psychological disturbances the [Ogaden] war had caused in the lives of children and women’ (M: 157). This recalls The Wretched of the Earth's provocative final chapter, ‘Colonial War and Mental Disorders’ (Fanon 2001: 200–250). Hilaal's most significant case study is his young nephew, Askar, whose fractured narrative reflects the psychic and physiognomic pressures brought about by conflict. Askar's turbulent struggle to come to terms with the politics of identity and affiliation takes place against the backdrop of Somalia's anti-secessionist war with Ethiopia.