Radiolab Presents: Anna in Somalia

Summary

---

Radiolab Presents: Anna in Somalia

Podcast: Radiolab (WNYC Studios)
Episode Date: September 12, 2017
Contributors: Gregory Warner, Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich, Elif Batuman, Dr. Aden Abacore, Muhammad

---

Main Theme

The episode follows the true story of Muhammad, a Somali man imprisoned for writing a critical newsletter under a repressive regime in the 1980s. Enduring years of solitary confinement, Muhammad finds unexpected solace and transformation through a surreptitiously shared copy of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, tapped out by a fellow inmate, Dr. Aden Abacore, through the prison walls. The story is an exploration of resilience, empathy, and the life-changing power of literature—even in the darkest, most isolating circumstances.

---

Key Discussion Points & Timeline

[03:35] Muhammad’s Life Before Prison

• Muhammad describes the six months prior to his arrest as the best of his life—securing a good job, falling in love and marrying Ismahan, a bank teller.
  • “We realized we wanted to get married.” — Muhammad [03:51]
• The era is a cultural renaissance in Somalia under dictator Siad Barre, despite political repression.

[04:59] The Arrest and Prison Life

• After Muhammad helps raise funds for a struggling hospital (cut off by the government for political reasons), he risks further exposure by writing a letter describing the hospital’s dire conditions.
  • “I suppose maybe I wanted to share my happiness... contribute. Because there are other people who are less fortunate than us.” — Muhammad [05:29]
• Security forces arrest Muhammad in the middle of the night; his wife is left terrified.
  • “You know, love, but also terror.” — Muhammad describing his wife’s face [06:23]
• In solitary, Muhammad is overwhelmed by isolation, darkness, pests, and fear for his wife’s fate outside.

[07:33] The Forbidden World of the Prison

• It is forbidden to speak to other inmates. Muhammad combats boredom and despair by observing ants, his only companions, in the cell.
  • “Just like watching a film. Great film.” — Muhammad on observing ants [09:37]

[10:03] Learning to Communicate: The Tap Code

• A neighbor whispers: “Learn ABC through the wall.” [10:12]
• Prisoners develop and teach each other a homemade knock-based alphabet code, enabling secret conversations about politics, memories, and daily struggles.
  • “Learn ABC through the wall.” — Neighbor [10:12]
  • “Nabat, which means peace in Somali.” — Muhammad on his first tapped word [11:09]

[11:44] Coping with Anxiety and Despair

• Muhammad’s insomnia and anxiety are soothed by late-night tapping exchanges with Dr. Aden, the prison doctor and Muhammad’s friend.
  • “I was only sleeping… maybe half an hour, then wake up.” — Muhammad [11:44]
  • Dr. Aden serves as a nocturnal therapist: “Just like a baby… making him fall asleep.” — Dr. Aden [15:09]

[15:52] The Invention of the Knock Language

• Another prisoner invents the knock code, inspired by his faint knowledge of Morse code—enabling covert cell-to-cell communication.
  • “Hey, what if I invent a language and we can talk?” — Gregory Warner explaining the inspiration [16:21]
  • “If there is a joke and somebody laughs, everybody starts knocking on the wall and asking that friend, ‘What’s that joke about?’” — Dr. Aden [17:13]
• Communication fosters camaraderie and preserves sanity.

[19:03] The Arrival of Anna Karenina

• Two years in, Dr. Aden is allowed one item from his confiscated possessions—he selects the largest book: Anna Karenina.
• Dr. Aden wraps his knuckles in a bedsheet for protection and begins tapping out the novel to Muhammad, letter by letter.
  • “I put [the bedsheet] around my wrist like prepping for a medical procedure… So then I started knocking and he started listening.” — Dr. Aden [20:16]

[25:00] The Transformative Power of Tolstoy

• The story of Anna—her public love, ostracism, and loneliness—mirrors Muhammad’s own feelings of jealousy, isolation, and longing for his wife.
  • “Although it was only knocking, it brought the whole story to me.” — Muhammad [25:05]
• Muhammad’s jealousy and resentment toward his absent wife transform into empathy as he realizes her suffering is as profound as his own.
  • “If he loved her, he would understand all the difficulty of her situation and he would rescue her from it.” — Muhammad quoting Anna Karenina [26:45]
  • “She was suffering all the time.” — Muhammad [27:17]
• Literary empathy leads him to reevaluate his past actions and perspective on his wife’s struggles.

[30:00] Literary Analysis by Elif Batuman

• Writer Elif Batuman explains that Tolstoy’s narrative uniquely immerses readers in many characters’ subjectivities—even the dog!
  • “He never gets bored of showing that.” — Elif Batuman [31:17]
• This skill, Batuman argues, helps a reader like Muhammad step outside his pain and see reality from others’ perspectives.

[32:00] Release and Reunion

• Eight years after imprisonment, Muhammad is unexpectedly released. He finds his homeland in ruins and discovers his wife, Ismahan, never gave up on him—despite immense pressure to divorce, relocation, and her own exile to Germany.
  • “She had not given up on him, and she had suffered in his absence.” — Gregory Warner [32:44]
• Their reunion is not as emotionally overwhelming as expected. Muhammad wonders why:
  • “Even in prison, I was feeling so much in love with her. And yet when we met, it wasn’t the same… as a stranger.” — Muhammad [33:22–33:36]
• Muhammad realizes, similar to Levin in Anna Karenina, that after enduring such trauma, building love again is a process—not an instantaneous return.
  • “You are still inside yourself… you have to open… we had to learn to love each other again.” — Muhammad [35:43, 35:59]

[36:08] Tolstoy’s Lasting Role

• Muhammad credits Tolstoy—and Dr. Aden—for teaching him empathy, patience, and how to approach rebuilding his life and marriage.
  • “I should build a monument for that book.” — Muhammad [36:50]
• Dr. Aden, unable to revisit the book himself, passes it on to others in need, declaring:
  • “The best present you can have in a prison is a book.” — Dr. Aden [37:50]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the birth of the knock language:
  • “Learn ABC through the wall.” — Unnamed neighbor [10:12]
• On literary empathy:
  • “If he loved her, he would understand all the difficulty of her situation and he would rescue her from it.” — Muhammad quoting Anna Karenina [26:45]
  • “It helped me survive. It helped me even sleep better.” — Muhammad on the impact of the story [31:34]
• On regaining humanity:
  • “We had to learn to love each other again.” — Muhammad on reuniting with his wife [35:59]
  • “I should build a monument for that book.” — Muhammad [36:50]
  • “The best present you can have in a prison is a book.” — Dr. Aden [37:50]

---

Episode Highlights with Timestamps

• [03:35] Muhammad’s love story and arrest
• [06:06] Nighttime arrest and prison conditions
• [10:03] The secret tap code is introduced
• [11:44] Muhammad’s mental anguish and late-night therapy tapping
• [15:52] Inventing the knock language in prison
• [19:03] Anna Karenina arrives in the prison
• [25:00] Muhammad identifies with Anna’s plight
• [30:00] Elif Batuman explains Tolstoy’s “empathy engine”
• [32:00] Release, Ismahan’s story, and the realities of reunion
• [36:08] The enduring legacy of Anna Karenina and the power of literature in survival

---

Tone and Atmosphere

• The episode features the signature blend of curiosity, empathy, suspense, and literary wonder that characterizes Radiolab. The personal voices of Muhammad and Dr. Aden are clear, open, and moving, while contributors like Batuman add insightful commentary. There’s a striking sense of both fragility and resilience throughout the narrative—a testament to human connection even in the bleakest of circumstances.

---

Summary Takeaway

"Anna in Somalia" is a unique story about how literature—even laboriously tapped out in secret code on a prison wall—can save minds and hearts. It's also a profound meditation on trauma, empathy, and the long road back to love and self outside the confines of enforced solitude. Through a Russian novel, two Somali prisoners—and the storytellers who bring their experience to us—discover the redemptive, enduring power of imagining life through another’s eyes.

Transcript

[Elif Batuman]

As the daughter of immigrants, financial struggles were part of my everyday reality. In high school, I became homeless and had to live in a women's shelter. Thankfully, being an Apia McDonald's Scholar enabled me to attend college and begin a new chapter in my life. And now my reality is filled with endless possibilities.

[Jad Abumrad]

McDonald's has awarded nearly $4 million through APIA scholars to support students. Learn more at apanext.com.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Big news Wayfair's Black Friday sale is here right now. Get up to 80 off everything you need for the season ahead. Save on kitchen and dining, bedroom furniture and mattresses, seasonal decor, and way more. All at Wayfair. These are Wayfair's best deals of the year, from seasonal finds to favorites you'll use all year long. Plus, enjoy fast and free shipping with delivery in time for the holidays. Save up to 80% off during Wayfair's Black Friday sale [e-mail] Wayfair Every style.

[Gregory Warner]

Every home.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Lowe's Early Black Friday deals are going fast. Don't miss up to 50% off select major appliances, plus up to an extra 25% off when you bundle. Select major appliances. And with Christmas around the corner, you're gonna need more string lights, right? Save $4 on GE LED 100 count string lights now just $5.98. Lowe's we help you save valid through 12. Three selection varies by location. Select locations only while supplies last. See lowe's.com for more details.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, before we get going today, just a quick prompt. So we're putting together a show of questions, questions that listeners have asked us over the years. We tend to get a lot of.

[Gregory Warner]

Questions of people being like, why?

[Robert Krulwich]

Why doesn't the big cloud up there fall down? I mean, it's full of water, right?

[Jad Abumrad]

Various kinds of questions. And so we're collecting all these questions and we're going to do a show where we're trying to answer as many as we can. So if you have a question, it.

[Robert Krulwich]

Doesn'T matter how dumb or how sophisticated.

[Jad Abumrad]

Any kind of question, email [e-mail] again, that's questionsadiolab.org you can also text us the word questions at 7:01 01.

[Robert Krulwich]

Why do I always have more wire hangers in my closet and never enough socks?

[Jad Abumrad]

That might be one that we would at least read. Okay, let's get on with the show.

[Gregory Warner]

Wait, you're listening. Okay.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

All right.

[Gregory Warner]

Okay.

[Muhammad]

All right. You're listening to Radiolab Radio Lab from wnyc.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hello, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab. And today we have a story from a longtime contributor of ours who's up to something new these days. Gregory Warner.

[Molly Webster]

Yes.

[Robert Krulwich]

If you listen to this program, you know his work because he's been on our show so many times.

[Jad Abumrad]

He brought us stories from upstate New York about faith healers. I think this is 12 years ago. Then a story from Afghanistan about the, quote, Afghan Elvis, a couple of stories from Kenya, one from Ethiopia, and explored.

[Robert Krulwich]

A cure to alcoholism by some quack in Moscow. In other words, he's like all over the place.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah. He is a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio and. And recently NPR decided to give him his own podcast. It's called Rough Translation and it's killer.

[Robert Krulwich]

We're gonna just begin today with sampling one of his new pieces. It again takes us to a peculiar place with an improbable result.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

Here's Greg Warner.

[Gregory Warner]

The six months before Muhammad went to prison were the best six months of his life. He'd landed this great job managing a Pepsi plant and he'd found true love on his first date.

[Muhammad]

We went to a small restaurant near where we lived.

[Gregory Warner]

Her name was Ismahan, 20 years old, teller at a state bank.

[Muhammad]

And we were talking and shyly, of course, you know, she was very shy and. And we realized we wanted to get married.

[Gregory Warner]

That's it. Love at first sight?

[Muhammad]

Sort of, yeah. In a sense, yeah.

[Gregory Warner]

Muhammad said he was just so struck by how generous she was and smart. And they connected about everything from the future of their country to the music they liked, whatever images the word Somalia calls to mind. The Somalia where Mohammed lived was in a cultural renaissance. This was 1981. It was under communist rule. And the dictator, he was a dictator. But he was also a big fan of Somali culture and music. Music was actually a big part of how Muhammad courted Ismahan. He made her mixtapes. This was the 80s.

[Muhammad]

She was into songs and stuff like that. Yeah.

[Gregory Warner]

Did you sing or did she sing?

[Muhammad]

Oh, she's a better singer.

[Gregory Warner]

So a few months after Mohammed and Ismaan got married, Mohammed got a phone call from the director of the local public hospital.

[Muhammad]

Will you please help me bring some donations from the communities?

[Gregory Warner]

He was desperate for donations for medicine and forbidding, in fact, that music loving dictator. His name was Siad Barre. He'd cut off supplies to the hospital in retaliation for an independence movement in the region. The doctor had been calling all his friends in secret.

[Muhammad]

Yeah, we were talking all the time.

[Gregory Warner]

Saying, you know, you work For Pepsi. You have connections, you know, people. Can we raise the money discreetly ourselves? But Mohammed wanted to go big.

[Muhammad]

I suppose maybe I wanted to share my happiness.

[Gregory Warner]

What do you mean by share your happiness?

[Muhammad]

You know, contribute. Because there are other people who are less fortunate than us.

[Gregory Warner]

Mohammed was in that stage of new love when you just kind of think the world is full of good feeling and if everybody knew what was going on, they would do the right thing. And he takes this bold and pretty risky move. He writes a letter, some kind of newsletter, about the hospital conditions.

[Muhammad]

Yes. And telling the conditions of the country.

[Gregory Warner]

Essentially implying that the dictator is not doing right by us and we gotta step up ourselves. A couple weeks later, Mohammed and Isman heard a knock on their door in the middle of the night.

[Muhammad]

National security people, they don't have no warrant or anything like that. They just said, we need to take him. And I could see her, my wife, and I could remember her in her eyes.

[Gregory Warner]

What was in her eyes?

[Muhammad]

You know, love, but also terror.

[Gregory Warner]

Muhammad is accused of treason and sentenced to life in solitary confinement, blindfolded, handcuffed.

[Muhammad]

And sent to a cell.

[Gregory Warner]

And this is where the story really begins. Muhammad's cell is tiny, maybe 6ft by 6ft. Concrete walls, hole in the floor for a toilet, and a window high up that lets in just a little bit of light.

[Muhammad]

It's very dark. And cockroaches come from the toilet.

[Gregory Warner]

Cockroaches.

[Muhammad]

Cockroach. And they will fly off the wall towards you and excrement with their feet.

[Gregory Warner]

So on their feet would be excrement from the toilet?

[Muhammad]

Yeah. Yes, yes.

[Gregory Warner]

After the cockroaches come the rats and the mice and the mosquitoes.

[Muhammad]

The noise of the mosquitoes, like an engine, you know, jet engine.

[Gregory Warner]

But even worse than that sound is the buzzing in his own mind. Because in this prison, there is one rule.

[Muhammad]

It was strictly forbidden to talk to your neighbors.

[Gregory Warner]

He's forbidden to speak to the other inmates.

[Muhammad]

So you walk forward and backward, pacing back and forth. And this is a tiny place to walk back and forth three short steps.

[Gregory Warner]

So, like, three short steps forward, three short steps backward. Three short steps forward.

[Muhammad]

Yes.

[Gregory Warner]

So that is his life now. Until one day he hears a knock on the wall. And that knock becomes words from another time and another place.

[Muhammad]

All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

[Gregory Warner]

This is rough translation.

[Jad Abumrad]

Greg, are you there?

[Gregory Warner]

Yeah. Hey, guys.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hey, Lisa. Do you want to just tell us what rough translation is?

[Gregory Warner]

Yeah. So. So I've been making a podcast this year. Basically, the idea is that in every episode, we follow a conversation we're having in the United States, hear how that's playing out in a different place. One episode, we might hear about how fake news is playing out in Ukraine, which has been getting fake news for longer and higher doses than anything Americans can imagine. We're hearing about a trend that's happening more and more now where Chinese women are hiring American surrogates to have their babies. So basically, every episode we're trying to do the same thing is just sort of see something we have.

[Robert Krulwich]

See what the other folks see.

[Gregory Warner]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

Which is not like what we see.

[Jad Abumrad]

And I guess in this one we have a guy locked away in a Somali prison. Should we just hit play and see what happens?

[Gregory Warner]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Gregory Warner]

It's eight months into Muhammad's prison sentence, and he's in his cell as always. He's alone. Not quite, though.

[Muhammad]

There were so many different types of ants as well.

[Gregory Warner]

Ants?

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Ants.

[Muhammad]

You know, tiny ones, really. Just like watching a film. Great film. The way they look around for food, the way they treat each other when you give them time. It's another world. I would have loved to go see their hill, their holes where they were staying, but I couldn't because it was all concrete.

[Gregory Warner]

And then one evening, when the guard is at the other end of the line of cells, just out of earshot, the guy in the cell next to Mohammed whispers through the door saying, learn.

[Muhammad]

ABC through the wall. Learn ABC through the wall.

[Robert Krulwich]

Learn ABC through the wall.

[Gregory Warner]

That's what he remembers.

[Jad Abumrad]

And does that make any sense to Muhammad at that moment?

[Gregory Warner]

That makes zero sense.

[Muhammad]

I look at the wall between us. But then he knocked on the wall. It did this.

[Gregory Warner]

And when Muhammad leaned over to the wall, he could hear this sound that's sharp. And so you have a sharp sound and a kind of more dull sound. And with those two sounds, it immediately clicks. Oh, this is the Alphabet.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh. So the guy's saying, learn this code.

[Gregory Warner]

Learn this code.

[Muhammad]

You say, yes, I understand now. And he started this. B, C, D, E, F, first in.

[Gregory Warner]

Alphabet, and then words. And what was the first sentence that you heard?

[Muhammad]

So nabat, which means peace in Somali. And it means, how are you? Also. Yeah, Nabat. I could repeat that with all the. All that day fell without doing anything else.

[Gregory Warner]

And so Mohammed can now spend most of a day tapping back and forth to talk with the guy in the next cell about politics, to share a childhood memory. But at night, when he can't sleep, he turns again to the concrete, and then again and again.

[Muhammad]

I was only sleeping for you. Maybe Half an hour, then wake up half an hour.

[Gregory Warner]

Mohammed would wake up from a nightmare, sweaty and in a panic.

[Muhammad]

I lost my sleep.

[Gregory Warner]

Are you awake? He'd tap.

[Muhammad]

I can't sleep.

[Gregory Warner]

I need to talk.

[Muhammad]

When I try to sleep, when I'm falling asleep, suddenly my heart races so fast. So I was thinking those ways that this is the smell of death.

[Gregory Warner]

What is the smell of death?

[Muhammad]

I think fear.

[Gregory Warner]

Muhammad had a lot of fearful thoughts in that prison cell, especially about his wife.

[Muhammad]

I could not imagine how she is because there are no news from the world, from the outside world. It's really difficult to imagine where she is, even whether she's alive.

[Gregory Warner]

And there was a meaner thought as well.

[Muhammad]

The government was encouraging wives to divorce their husbands.

[Gregory Warner]

The government was saying you should divorce.

[Muhammad]

Yes. Because there is these people who are in prison. Even some sheikhs found Quranic verses to.

[Gregory Warner]

Support that divorce in Somali society, in Islam is usually the husband's exclusive right. But there are these Quranic verses that can allow a wife to choose to divorce her husband if the husband's absent for some time. And sheikhs loyal to the dictator used those verses to pressure the wives of political prisoners.

[Muhammad]

Quite a number of people were divorced from their wives. I was thinking sometimes that she could.

[Gregory Warner]

She was only 20 years old. They had only been married for three months, and he was sentenced to life.

[Muhammad]

You think she's probably enjoying herself. She's living her life, and I am in this place.

[Gregory Warner]

At first it's just a little twinge of resentment. And then the feeling comes back, stronger and sharper. He thinks she should be visiting me. But wait, she can't visit me.

[Muhammad]

Nobody can visit this prison. Nobody can get in touch. And still you blame her for not getting in touch with you.

[Gregory Warner]

And what do you think about her in those moments when you're blaming her for not visiting you?

[Muhammad]

Very far from love. He probably hate her at that particular time.

[Gregory Warner]

Every time that Muhammad tapped one of these dark thoughts onto the wall, someone was listening. And the someone on the other side of the wall was a doctor. Dr. Adon Abacore is also an inmate in this prison. And as the doctor is listening to these taps on the wall, he's also diagnosing them.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Acute anxiety. Here he was telling me these symptoms through the wall.

[Gregory Warner]

I should tell you that Dr. Aden and Mohammed were actually friends before prison.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Yeah, yeah.

[Gregory Warner]

The doctor was the director of the public hospital, the one who'd called him up and asked him for donations. He did not ask Mohammed to write that letter complaining about the hospital conditions.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Because there were no press allowed. No newspapers, no free press. And that's the moment the government decided that they should do something about us.

[Gregory Warner]

But if the doctor blamed Mohammed for writing the letter that got them both thrown in prison, he didn't show it. Every time that Mohammed knocked, whatever the hour, the doctor would knock back.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

He used to have these nightmares. So he jumps. He has a nightmare, and then he knocks on the wall again. So I have to wake up and then again start conversation, you know, so that he can fall asleep again. Just like a baby, you know, taking a baby to bed and making him fall asleep.

[Gregory Warner]

You know, if Dr. Aden seems fairly unsentimental about some of the more dramatic aspects of Muhammad's life.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Just like a baby, it's partly that.

[Gregory Warner]

These two men are such different personalities. While Muhammad described that nighttime arrest as a moment of shock and terror, Dr. Aden seems to have met those same secret police with a bag packed and ready for prison, a bag of clothes, and lots and lots of books. Why books?

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Books is the best friend in a prison.

[Gregory Warner]

But then when you got to the prison, it was taken away.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

The bags, everything was taken away. Even our glasses were taken away.

[Gregory Warner]

Tell me about the day you learned the language or learned the knocking language.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Well, it was the most exciting day in our life. It was the most exciting, and we couldn't sleep.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, so, Greg, let me ask this knocking, this was something that they. That they all were doing together.

[Gregory Warner]

Yeah. There was a particular line of eight prisoners. So these eight prisoners, there was a particular guy in the middle there who had once heard of Morse code and just lying there in prison one day thought, hey, what if I invent a language and we can talk?

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, so this was actually a homespun.

[Gregory Warner]

Yeah, he did not know Morse code. He just knew of it.

[Robert Krulwich]

And the guards couldn't hear that. That was their own little.

[Gregory Warner]

Right. I mean, literally, they could. This was kind of the magic of it. They could be just tapping on the wall. They could be having a whole conversation, and the guard would have no idea what they were saying.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

We started practicing it the whole day and the whole night. And if there is a joke and somebody laughs, everybody starts knocking on the wall and asking that friend, what's that joke about? And that. That guy starts sending the message, the joke, and it's.

[Gregory Warner]

It could take an hour to send a tiny joke from one cell to the next cell to the next. There were eight of them in this prison.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

The guards, of course, they don't know that we are knocking on the wall because they can't hear. And Then when they see us all laughing, they just say, oh, these guys are also losing their sanity.

[Gregory Warner]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, Mohammed really was worried that his mind was slipping.

[Muhammad]

I was frightened of going to a certain area in my mind when I would commit suicide without knowing, without wanting to.

[Gregory Warner]

Was it almost like the fear of going crazy was making you crazy?

[Muhammad]

Yes, the fear. The fear was. You know, you could imagine people who were crazy and you could imagine that maybe going crazy was the point of no return. So you were frightened of that while.

[Gregory Warner]

The doctor on his side of the.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Wall, and I was trying to counsel him and explain to him through the wall that he's not going to go mad and that he's not going to die. But you can't counsel a person through a wall.

[Gregory Warner]

Months go by, then a whole year. Finally, it's two years into their prison sentence and something happens. Dr. Aden is summoned to the office of the warden to get a change of clothes.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

The room was empty and there was a bench. And they asked you to sit on the bench. And then he asked one of the guys to go and bag.

[Gregory Warner]

Just the whole bag with all your clothes, your books, everything?

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Yeah. And then you open that bag and then he tells you to choose something new to wear. And you don't choose anything else.

[Gregory Warner]

He says, don't choose anything else?

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

No, that was the regulations.

[Gregory Warner]

The doctor's getting his first change of clothes since he arrived in prison. So then you showed back two years later to choose your next T shirt.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Yes.

[Gregory Warner]

But then the doctor turns to the warden, he looks him right in the eye.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Can I have one book? I said, that's all. Even I did not expect that he would agree to give me. So I was just. I just tried, you know. And he said, yes, you can, but choose one of your books. So then I started thinking of the. Of the biggest book I can take with me.

[Gregory Warner]

A few minutes later, the doctor is walking back to his cell with the fattest book in his bag under his arm. You can picture him fantasizing about just getting to lie down and read. But when he returns to his cell, there's that sound at the wall.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

It occurred to me, the thought that, why don't I read this book for him to the wall and distract the negative thoughts.

[Gregory Warner]

Meanwhile, Muhammad, on his side of the wall, hears a new set of taps.

[Muhammad]

I have a book. A book. And I'll read it to you chapter by chapter. Anna Karenina.

[Gregory Warner]

Anna Karenina. Anna Karenina, the famous novel by Leo tolstoy, published in 1878. The English translation that they're using is 800 pages, 350,000 words, nearly 2 million letters. Each letter a set of taps. So the doctor prepares himself.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

So to start, I took piece of my bed sheet and I put it.

[Gregory Warner]

Around my wrist like he's prepping for a medical procedure, wrapping the sheet around his wrist and knuckles because it will.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Damage my wrist if I continue like that. So then I started knocking and he started listening.

[Elif Batuman]

All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion. And in the Oblonsky's house, the wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on.

[Jad Abumrad]

The effect that those taps in that book had on Muhammad's mind is after the break.

[Gregory Warner]

This is Michael Burls from Portland, Oregon. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about [e-mail].

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Radiolab is supported by BILT. Nobody wants to pay rent. But if you have to, BILT works to make it more worthwhile. By paying rent through Bilt, you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and more. But it doesn't stop there. You can dine out at your favorite local restaurants and earn additional points, get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios and enjoy exclusive experiences just for BILT members. Every month, earn points on rent and around your neighborhood, wherever you call home, by going to joinbilt.com Radiolab that's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com Radiolab.

[Molly Webster]

Hey, I'm Molly Webster and this is an ad by BetterHelp. So it happens every year. The seasons are changing, the days are getting shorter, and basically once it becomes dark outside of my window, I feel like the rest of the world disappears and I'm just alone and there's nothing left to do but watch television. This November, Better Help is asking everyone to reach out to our people that could be your family, your friends, your neighbors, and to resist this call of the cocoon. And yeah, reaching out can take some courage. I've got text messages from January I haven't responded to. And you know what? I'm gonna write em back right now. Hi, sorry I've been missing. How are you? Why don't we all do this sooner? Therapy is the same way. BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. You just fill out a short questionnaire and they find a licensed therapist who they think you'll like a Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Radiolab that's betterhelp.com Radiolab.

[Alex Honnold]

Radiolab is supported by Planet Visionaries, the podcast created in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. The show is hosted by Alex Honnold, who you may recognize from Free Solo, where he climbed El Capitan without ropes. Now he's turning his focus to the biggest challenge of protecting the only planet we've got. Every episode brings you stories that prove climate optimism isn't naive, it's a strategy. The episodes span the globe, from Arctic scientists and Amazon Forest Guardians to entrepreneurs reimagining fashion and food systems. You'll hear from explorers, scientists, activists and storytellers who are who are working to reshape the future in practical, human ways. In one episode, Alex sits down with wildlife photographer Bertie Gregory to discuss how animals can teach humans resiliency, empathy and hope in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Check out Planet Visionaries Listen or watch on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Lowe's early Black Friday deals are going fast. Don't miss up to 50% off select major appliances plus up to an extra 25% off when you bundle select major appliances. And with Christmas around the corner, you're gonna need more string lights, right? Save $4 on GE LED 100 count string lights. Now just 598 Lowes we help you save. Valid through 12. 3. Selection varies by locations. Select locations only while supplies last. See lowe's.com for more details.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, we're back. This is Radiolab, and we now return.

[Robert Krulwich]

To the tale told by Gregory Warner.

[Jad Abumrad]

From his new podcast, Rough Translation.

[Gregory Warner]

The day that the novel Anna Karenina entered their lives marked a new phase for Mohammed and the doctor. Each morning, Dr. Aden would carefully wrap his hand and open the novel, and Mohammed, on his side of the wall, would listen.

[Elif Batuman]

When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevich sprinkled some scent on himself, although it was.

[Muhammad]

Only knocking, but it brought the whole story to me.

[Elif Batuman]

Pocketbook, matches and watch with its double chain and seals, and shaking out his handkerchief, feeling himself clean, fragrant, healthy, and physically at ease in spite of his unhappiness, he walked with a slight swing on each leg into the dining room, where coffee was already waiting for him.

[Gregory Warner]

If it's been a while since you cracked open Anna Karenina, here's what you need to know. Anna is a noblewoman in 19th century Russia. She's married to a man much older than herself. She goes to a ball in a black velvet dress lined with lace, and falls in love with a soldier, Count Vronsky. He's kind of a rich boy, careless, in love. Mohammed immediately hates him.

[Muhammad]

He's also in the uniform, and I was hating anything in uniform, actually. This is very important. Really? Yeah, I really felt that.

[Gregory Warner]

Right. He's in the military, and you were in a military prison.

[Muhammad]

Yeah, I was a military prison, definitely.

[Gregory Warner]

So you really didn't like Vronsky.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

No.

[Gregory Warner]

So anyway, the soldier, Vronsky, he steals Anna's heart. He gets her pregnant, even though she's still married to the other guy. And then Anna makes a choice that really changes everything, because instead of having a secret affair like all the others in her social set, she makes her love public. She leaves her husband and society. The Russian nobility cut her off. They isolate her. Vronsky is a man, so he's pretty much able to go on with his life as before. But Anna's realizing how alone she is. She's staying in a room, wondering what Vronsky's up to when he's not with her.

[Muhammad]

Okay.

[Gregory Warner]

Just the same as Muhammad was wondering what his wife was doing outside the prison walls, Mohammed reads me this one sentence from the book.

[Muhammad]

If he loved her.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Sorry?

[Muhammad]

If he loved her, he would understand all the difficulty of her situation and he would rescue her from it.

[Gregory Warner]

If he loved her, he would rescue her from her situation. It's interesting because Anna is trapped by views about women and maybe desire and. But you were trapped by real waltz.

[Muhammad]

Yeah.

[Gregory Warner]

He says it didn't matter how different their lives seemed on the outside.

[Muhammad]

Inside, she was suffering all the time.

[Gregory Warner]

He felt exactly like Anna. He also was jealous, crazily jealous, and also hating himself for being jealous. And all of a sudden, he meets this fictional character who is suffering in exactly the same way. And this suffering is driving her into a state that Muhammad most feared for himself.

[Muhammad]

Going to a certain area in my mind when I would commit suicide without knowing, without wanting to.

[Gregory Warner]

So it's now 750 pages into the book, and two months have passed since the doctor first started tapping the book letter by letter. Anna and Vronsky are now living in Moscow. And it's summer, so it's hot and suffocating and. And on this particular day, Vronsky is off visiting his mom, which Anna hates, because she thinks she's trying to set him up with a young princess. And Anna is in this state of mind where she both thinks that she's a burden to Vronsky and she thinks he'd be better off without her. But also she wants him to suffer her absence the way she's suffering. It's in this state that Anna finds herself walking down the train platform. The train is her hurtling down the tracks and this thought possesses her.

[Elif Batuman]

She knew what she had to do. With a rapid light step she went down the steps that led from the tank to the rails and stopped quite near the approaching train.

[Gregory Warner]

As Mohammed is listening to this and he's thinking about what she is about to do.

[Muhammad]

I really cried. I felt for her.

[Gregory Warner]

But he realizes his tears are not just for Anna.

[Muhammad]

That's when I remember my wife.

[Gregory Warner]

He's remembering Ismahan, his wife, how much she's suffering.

[Muhammad]

And yes, the books, the one that brought me back to think about her a lot.

[Gregory Warner]

And he finds himself asking a question that in two years in prison he has not asked himself before.

[Muhammad]

Did I do well in those few months we were together?

[Gregory Warner]

Had he been a good husband?

[Muhammad]

Yeah. Did I treat her as she deserved?

[Gregory Warner]

And instead of thinking she's left him and also hating himself for thinking that she's left him, he's thinking why did he take himself away from her by writing that stupid newsletter?

[Muhammad]

Maybe we could have done it in a different way.

[Gregory Warner]

That letter that got them all thrown.

[Muhammad]

In prison, maybe we could have talked to them.

[Gregory Warner]

And putting himself in his wife's shoes like that kind of took him out of his own misery. He could think a thought like she's.

[Muhammad]

Suffering worst than me because I was only in prison but she was in the outside world.

[Gregory Warner]

He goes from self pity to pity for her.

[Elif Batuman]

Oh, I think that's related to the book. Tolstoy's actually famous for that. That's like his magic crazy talent.

[Gregory Warner]

Can you say more about that magic crazy talent? Because like when I was rereading I told Elif Botjuman about Muhammad's story. You've heard her reading the Tolstoy passages for us. She's also a writer, novelist herself and totally obsessed with Anna Karenina.

[Elif Batuman]

I like it a lot.

[Gregory Warner]

When I told her about Mohammed's experience she had this idea about why that book in particular might have helped Mohammed make this mental leap from hating his wife to imagining everything through her eyes.

[Elif Batuman]

Tolstoy gives a lot of weight to all of the characters, like even to just like a newlywed young girl, you spend a lot of time in her thoughts and there's a scene where she's trying to eat a mushroom on a plate and it keeps slipping from under.

[Muhammad]

Her fork, trying in vain to spear a disobedient slippery mushroom with her fork and shaking the lace through which her arm showed white.

[Elif Batuman]

It's a book that takes the subjectivity of young women seriously. And not just young women, everyone. The servants and the dog. There's a hunting scene in this that actually goes to the perspective of the dog, and everything just seems so true. You read that and you're like, that's definitely what that dog was thinking.

[Gregory Warner]

And so she says, the experience of reading Tolstoy is the experience of being constantly confronted with how differently the same.

[Elif Batuman]

Thing can look from a slightly different perspective. Like, he's just. He never gets bored of showing that.

[Gregory Warner]

And in the book, the characters themselves.

[Elif Batuman]

Actually judge each other and then are able to expand that and to see each other a little bit more generously.

[Gregory Warner]

That's what Elif thinks that Tolstoy's book gave to Muhammad.

[Muhammad]

It definitely held that. Definitely, definitely. In a place like that, prison, people become very selfish. You think everybody has forgotten about me at the beginning, forgotten about me, and nobody cares about me like that. But when you think about other people's situation, then you understand it helped me survive. It helped me even sleep better.

[Gregory Warner]

Tolstoy actually had one more role to play in Muhammad's life. Eight years after his arrest, the Somali political winds had shifted, and the dictator was trying to appease his enemies. Muhammad and the others were suddenly released. He discovered his region of Somalia was flattened by civil war. But Muhammad also discovered something else. His wife, Ismahan. She was still his wife. She had not given up on him, and she had suffered in his absence. Working at the state bank, she'd been pressured by her boss to divorce the traitor Mohammed. When she refused, she was relocated. And by the time Mohammed was released, she was living in a refugee camp in Germany. She couldn't even make it back to Somalia to see him.

[Muhammad]

So I waited another. That was for another, say, about 10 months, I think, to see each other.

[Gregory Warner]

Finally, they figure out a way that they can reunite in a neighboring country. And though it's been almost a decade since they've seen each other, he recognized her immediately from a distance. And as they drew closer, Ismahan opens her arms to give her husband a hug. And he reaches out. And all that he could do in that moment is shake her hand.

[Elif Batuman]

Yeah.

[Muhammad]

Do I not feel as I felt even. Even in prison, I was feeling so much in love with her. And yet when we met, it wasn't the same.

[Gregory Warner]

She was like a, you know, as.

[Muhammad]

A stranger, something like that.

[Gregory Warner]

Wow.

[Muhammad]

I mean, I was asking myself, why are you not as in love with her as before.

[Jad Abumrad]

This was a moment that we found really interesting. And, you know, as we were talking about it with Greg.

[Gregory Warner]

Oh, no, no, no.

[Jad Abumrad]

In the studio, Greg said that it was really in this moment, this period.

[Elif Batuman]

Of doubt, he was overcome by a momentary doubt of the possibility of setting up that new life he had dreamed of.

[Jad Abumrad]

On the way that the book came back to Muhammad again. Except this time he didn't think of the main character, Anna Karenina. He thought of a different character in the book, a guy by the name of Levin. This is a character who is also in love, also has, like, strong emotions. And like Muhammad, in that one moment with his wife, Levin spends the entire book just wracked by doubts. Doubts about everything.

[Elif Batuman]

An eternal dissatisfaction with yourself, vain attempts to improve and failures, and an eternal expectation of the happiness.

[Jad Abumrad]

And standing there with his wife, just weirded out by his own lack of feeling. Muhammad had two thoughts, like, oh, I'm like Levin in this moment, and what happens to Levin at the end?

[Gregory Warner]

And what's really cool about Levin's conclusion at the end of the book is he finally just decides, like, I'm not gonna worry about how weird my feelings are. Like, he doesn't actually come. He doesn't make himself whole as he wants to be. He wants to the whole book. He wants to be fully in love with Kitty, and not just with his heart, but with his mind and his soul. And he wants to be a good Christian, and everything has to sort of make sense to him. But, you know, but he's just a complicated sort of guy and he's got many different feelings. But at the end of the book, he kind of feels like, you know, I'm gonna stop just thinking obsessively about how awkward I am in this situation. And I'm just gonna do what I'm supposed to. I'm going to be the dad. I'm going to be the husband.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Muhammad thought to himself, like, maybe I need to do that too, because, like, who knows where I'm at right now. I was in a cell for eight.

[Muhammad]

Years in the prison. In a way, you are not living. You are still inside yourself. You are not. You have to open.

[Jad Abumrad]

And he figured, like, opening back up is probably going to take some time and some work.

[Muhammad]

We had to learn to love each other again.

[Jad Abumrad]

And that, he says, is what they did.

[Muhammad]

Tolstoy had a lot to do with it.

[Gregory Warner]

You think Tolstoy helped you fall in love again?

[Muhammad]

I mean. I mean, the feeling of love, you know, it wasn't so easy to become in love again. This man has inexperienced. And she was living her real life. It's difficult for people to probably to live with someone who has been in solitary confinement for so long. I was probably very difficult to live with at that particular time.

[Gregory Warner]

And you're saying that knowing that you were hard to live with, Knowing.

[Muhammad]

Yes. Yes. It made it easier for us to talk to each other, to live, to learn to live with each other.

[Gregory Warner]

Because you knew that your heart was not quite working yet.

[Muhammad]

Yeah. I should build a monument for that book.

[Gregory Warner]

Hey, one last thing. There is someone else to give credit to here besides the great Russian author. Every detail that Tolstoy wrote into that book, every perspective, perspective shift that helped Muhammad escape his prison cell. All those sentences had to be tapped out on a concrete wall by a friend.

[Muhammad]

No, I could imagine him, you know, getting tired because he was working hard. Really working hard.

[Gregory Warner]

Dr. Aden said that Muhammad was his last patient after their release. He was just too out of practice to return to medicine. And after prison, the doctor did try to read the novel Anna Karenina again.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

I went to a bookshop and when I tried to read it, I couldn't read it.

[Gregory Warner]

Too many bad memories. But he knew someone who could use it.

[Dr. Aden Abacore]

Somebody? A friend who was imprisoned here in Somalia. A journalist, a friend. And I took that book to him and I told him that the best present you can have in a prison is a book.

[Jad Abumrad]

Craig Warner.

[Gregory Warner]

Thank you, guys.

[Jad Abumrad]

You want to check out more episodes of Rough Translation? We'll link you to [e-mail] or you can go to npr.org rough translation. This episode of Rough Translation was edited by Marianne McCune and was produced by Jess Jang. Thank you to Elizabeth Senja Spackman, who introduced Greg to Dr. Adan. She interviewed Dr. Adan at the Hargesa International Book Fair in Somaliland. The Rough Translation team had editorial help from Jacob Goldstein, Noah King, Nick Fountain, Robert Smith, Brian Urstadt, Luke Olkowski, and Sana Krasikov. Elif Botman is the author of the Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read Them. Her new novel is the Idiot. Theme music by John Ellis. More music from Blue Dot Sessions. And our Dylan Keefe threw in some music as well. All right, well, we should go. I'm Jad Abumran.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Kulwich and thank you very much for listening.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

This is Susannah calling from sunny Beirut in Lebanon. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is produced by Soren Wheeler. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Rachel Cusick, David Gebel, Bethel Habti, Tracy Hunt, Matt Kielty, Robert Krolwich, Enni McEwen, Latif Nasser, Melissa O', Donnell, Arianne Wack and Molly Webster, with help from Amanda Arancik, Shimo La Nigar Fatali, Phoebe Wang and Katie Ferguson. Our fact checker is Michelle Harris.