Warsan Shire’s prayer for the unmourned
The British-Somali poet Warsan Shire’s audacious yet uneven volume of poetry captures the quiet loneliness of African immigrant lives in the West.
Somalia
The skeleton in the closet
The novelist Nadifa Mohamed complicates Britain’s troubled, racist legal history through the personal tale of one otherwise insignificant person, a Somali immigrant to Cardiff in Wales.
Endless war in Somalia
Somalis have enough to worry about. The last thing they need is more war, especially one sponsored by the United States’ War on Terror.
The lives of refugees
Somali refugees in Kenya are held hostage by political disagreements between their governments. Under international law, Kenya has a duty to protect them.
Geographies of war-making in East Africa
African states are involved in the War on Terror more than we think. They're surrounded by an eco-system of the war industry.
The Pearl of the Indian Ocean
Exploring the different neighborhoods within Mogadishu raises the question: who is this city really for?
Passing as a refugee
Borders and camps across Africa are using biometrics to track refugees. For those who are stateless, “fraud” can allow for the smuggling of truths into administrative lies.
Food crimes
Why the World Food Program doesn't deserve the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.
Precarious Somali boyhoods
Somali-Canadian writers lay bare the harsh realities of being Black, migrant and Muslim in multicultural and ostensibly tolerant Toronto.
Moving forward while standing still
Reflecting on the 60th anniversary of Somalia’s Independence with Fouzia Warsame, one of the country's most prominent academics.
Independence Day
The labor and political organizing of Somali immigrants in the US Midwest should inspire more Americans to join the broader movement for worker rights and racial equality.
The undeclared war in Somalia
The United States’ military operations in Somalia are not well known because they'e carried out secretly or via proxies. COVID-19 hasn't slowed them down.
The third brother
A new thriller by Andrew Welsh-Huggins follows a detective investigating the disappearance of a Somali-American teenager in Ohio.
Are you really Global apartheid?
The writer, a "Global" Somali traveler, reflects on borders, airports, and belonging.
A trap nomad finds a home
The Somali artist and DJ, Hibotep, is one of the many pushing electronic hybrid sounds from East Africa through the epicenter of the movement, Kampala.
From Mogadishu to Toronto
The novel The Youth of God offers fresh perspectives on Somali assimilation and struggle in Canada's largest city.
The great Somali apologia
Every time you project terror onto Somalis, remember to ask how we live in Mogadishu.
Meditating on youth in Mogadishu
In Somalia young people are the majority, yet have to act and perform “age"—appear older—to succeed or get anywhere in life.
Unthinking refugee studies
What use are academic categories when they reinforce conservative concepts scholars seek to challenge?
War begets terror
Since the beginning of 2017, the frequency and lethalness of al-Shabaab’s attacks inside Somalia have reached new levels. This reality was demonstrated for everyone last month, on October 14, when a huge truck filled with explosives detonated at a busy intersection in the capital Mogadishu claiming almost 400 lives. This relentless wave of bombings and assassinations […]