Somali Annual Book Fair 2017 Welcomes Foreign Authors For The First Time.

• Since the inception of The Somalia Book Fair, foreign authors attended for the very first time.
• Improved security in the country gives new hope.
• Three authors share their thoughts and works.

Somalia has been a country characterized by heavy civil unrest and wars as far back as 1991 and it was good relief that they were in the news for a reason very different from what it is culturally known for as it opened its doors for its third annual book fair in the city of Mogadishu that has been heavily hit by the war.

There were almost as many security agents on ground at the event as authors including plain clothed ones within the hotel that went unmarred by attacks from insurgents that are known as al Shabaab militia.

31 authors presented their books and Fartumo Kusow who is a Somali-Canadian that wrote The Tale of a Boon’s Wife returned to the country for the first time in 27 years commented on the sorry state of the Capital city:

“It’s like the country has been hit by an earthquake. No building is where it is meant to be. The landscape by the sea is different.”

Also in attendance was Dominik Alonga from Rawanda who expressed sympathy because her home had also been a site of internal rife, she said:

“When you hear Rawanda, you think ‘genocide’, so I write about culture to show the sympathetic and good side of life.”

Abdiraham Ali Mohamed who is from Mogadishu and an accountancy student and works as a waiter between classes presented his book A Country Whose Citizens Migrate spoke to the media saying:

“I was born after central government collapsed and during a civil war. Writing in my mother tongue was a pain in the neck because I didn’t get a good teacher who could teach me Somali literature, so I studied foreign countries myself … I want Somalis to read my book so their life can be a little better and they can stay at home.”

There were five foreign authors at the event and the organizer Mohamed Diini has commended their bravery that showed in the difference between the attendances this year and that of 2015.

Source: The New York Post.