The simile of the shrines
The book compares a series of shrines to pearls on a necklace. The author writes, “We had come to Harar to honor Saint Bilal al Habash and seek his blessing and protection, for this is the city that houses the original shrine in a series of shrines in his honor strung like pearls on a necklace across the sands of North Africa.”
The rubble-strewn field
The narrator tried to map his life in a particular way, but it backfired. A simile is used to show the frustration. The narrator says, “Amina has encouraged me to map my own family in this way, but the one time I tried it proved dispiriting: it looked like a rubble-strewn field. At the far left of the page, I positioned the Great Abdal as father to Hussein and me.”
The simile of peace of meat
The significance of friendship is illustrated by the narrator using a simile. The narrator compares his friend Aziz to a piece meat stuck between his teeth. The narrator says, “He is like a rrata, a piece of meat stuck between my teeth, but English does not allow for such possibilities.”
