In Nuruddin Farah’s 10th novel, “Hiding in Plain Sight,” the central male figure is killed in a suicide bomb attack in Mogadiscio in the first 12 pages, leaving behind two teenage children and an estranged wife.

Amidst the shock and grief is a wide open space in which women are in charge of putting the family — and perhaps the nation — back together.

A winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Nuruddin Farah often writes about the clan violence that has plagued his homeland of Somalia. Many of Mr. Farah’s novels are written from the perspective of a strong-willed, intelligent Somali woman who struggles with the strictures of tradition in a male-dominated culture.

Aar’s sister Bella, a model-turned-freelance photographer in Rome is rocked by the events. Bella’s relationship with Aar is odd in its intensity. Bella “has never married, never committed herself loyally and fully to another person, man or woman, always and forever waiting for the summons, duty-bound, steadfast in her dedication to her beloved brother, like a hound to its master.”

Mr. Farah notes in the acknowledgments the death of his own “favorite sister,” Basra Farah Hussein, who was killed in January 2014 when the Taliban bombed a Kabul restaurant. Mr. Farah’s sister was working in Kabul on behalf of UNICEF.

“Hiding in Plain Sight” is, in part, about the pull between loyalty and legitimacy. One of its central questions is: who should be the legitimate caretaker of Aar’s children who are, practically speaking, orphans? Mr. Farah is a writer deeply concerned with African politics, and so this question is mirrored back in political terms.

It’s loyalty to Aar that compels Bella to give up her entire life in order to care for the teenage Salif and Dahaba. Tensions arise when Aar’s estranged wife Valerie also arrives in Nairobi, intent on asserting her maternal rights. Valerie abandoned the children and Aar, and moved to India with Padmini, her female lover. Irresponsible and flighty, Valerie is hardly an ideal parent.

“Hiding” is rife with earnest dialog on east African politics, touching on sensitive issues such as repressive gender roles, female genital mutilation, terrorism, and clan violence. At times the narrative lapses into the didactic, especially as Salif and Dahaba express their political views more in the manner of sophisticated adults.

Women’s discourse with each other is the main event in “Hiding.” Much time is spent in the act of building trust in order to reveal the secrets concealed deep within each female character. “You never know what you know until you realize that you’ve known it all along,” Aar once told Bella about his realization that Valerie was a lesbian.

As Bella, Valerie, Padmini, and other women in the novel forge relationships with each other, they find permission to admit to themselves the things they already knew, but kept hidden.

“Hiding” challenges the reader to differentiate between how a character is represented and the literary uses of that representation. For example, the book’s lesbian couple is represented in almost comical terms, as oversexed and irresponsible. In the book’s exposition, Valerie and Padmini are locked up in a Ugandan jail for “indecent acts.”

Various characters in the novel discuss the criminalization of homosexuality as an indication of Africa’s backwardness. Still, it’s difficult to view the couple in a favorable light when they fail to honor a dinner date with the children because they are frolicking at a gay bar, or are caught “in the act” by Dahaba. Mr. Farah puts pressure on the liberal verbiage of inclusivity by putting homosexual desire boldly in readers’ faces.

“Hiding” is unsettling, but productive in the way it rattles the cage of conventional thinking about family, gender, and sexuality as they apply to the African context. At once conscientious and demanding, nuanced and aggressive, it is a novel that is sure to be featured in the year-end awards lists.

Julie Hakim Azzam is an editor and member of the National Book Critics Circle (julie.azzam@gmail.com).

First Published: November 16, 2014, 5:23 a.m.