Horses like the wind

the long version

"Set in Somalia just after its independence in the 1960s, Horses Like the Wind and Other Stories of Africa is a collection of nine short storied that paint a portrait of the many different lives that intertwine along the Horns of Africa. A ruthless horse dealer comes up against the best tracker in the Somali army; transplanted Italian farmers look to a future of stark disintegration as they struggle to hold on to their lands and their families; gutsy American women attempt to establish lives of their own in the remote East African desert; and a beggar and an idealist meet in a chance encounter on the steps of a Mogadishu bank, with mind-numbing consequences."--BOOK JACKET.