Mother Somalia-Stories of Hope

Mother Somalia-Stories of Hope

Author: Mohamed Abdi-Bakayr

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2012-03-22

Total Pages: 77

ISBN-13: 1469136279

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Mother Somalia-Stories of Hope is a collection of fictitious stories. Each story captures tragic conditions experienced by Somali people as a result of Somalia's civil war followed by the country's disintegration. These stories unlock harsh situations und


A Man of Good Hope

A Man of Good Hope

Author: Jonny Steinberg

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2015-01-08

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1473523079

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When Asad was eight years old, his mother was shot in front of him. With his father in hiding, he was swept alone into the great wartime migration that has scattered the Somali people throughout the world. This extraordinary book tells Asad’s story. Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad lived his childhood at a sceptical remove from the adult world, living in a bewildering number of places, from the cosmopolitan streets of inner-city Nairobi to towns deep in the Ethiopian desert. By the time he reached the cusp of adulthood, Asad had made good as a street hustler, brokering relationships between hardnosed Ethiopian businessmen and bewildered Somali refugees. He also courted the famously beautiful Foosiya, and married her, to the astonishment of his peers. Buoyed by success in work and in love, Asad put $1,200 in his pocket and made his way down the length of the African continent to Johannesburg, whose streets he believed to be lined with gold. So began an adventure in a country richer and more violent than he could possibly have imagined. A Man of Good Hope is the story of a person shorn of the things we have come to believe make us human – personal possessions, parents, siblings. And yet Asad’s is an intensely human life, one suffused with dreams and desires and a need to leave something of permanence on this earth.


One Day Closer

One Day Closer

Author: Lorinda Stewart

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2017-10-17

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1501143158

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An instant national bestseller and "a beautiful story of what love can do to conquer the impossible" (Jann Arden). On the day my daughter was kidnapped by outlaws in Somalia, my life split into two parts: Before and After. This is the story of both parts, and of how I fought to bring my daughter home. On August 23, 2008, Amanda Lindhout, Lorinda Stewart’s daughter, is kidnapped outside of Mogadishu in Somalia. The kidnappers’ demand is simple: pay $2.5 million or Amanda will be killed. For the next 460 days, Lorinda does everything in her power—and beyond—to get her daughter back alive. This brave, small-town mother with no experience in hostage negotiations is called upon by the RCMP to be the lead communicator with Adam, the Somali who identifies himself as the English-speaking negotiator for Amanda's kidnappers. In a secret “war room” in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Lorinda joins forces with federal officers and begins to answer calls from Adam, establishing a fragile rapport of trust with the man who holds her daughter’s fate in his hands. She learns how to demand POLs—proofs of life—from Amanda’s hostage takers and even how to react to “bad calls”—when she is forced to listen to her daughter’s desperate cries for help, fearing she is being abused and tortured. What’s supposed to be a short negotiation stretches on, and weeks become months. Lorinda finds herself increasingly on her own as negotiations break down. But she never gives up hope, even as the conversations become more traumatic. Faced with the terrible possibility of her daughter’s death, she decides to take control, bringing in private hostage negotiators and fundraising ransom money from donors. But will it be enough? This is the true story of one woman’s heroic perseverance in the face of despair, and of the hope and healing to be found beyond trauma. It is also, in the end, a tribute to the extraordinary power of a mother’s love.


Call Me American

Call Me American

Author: Abdi Nor Iftin

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0525433023

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Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop and watching action films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. When U.S. marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies. Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around Mogadishu as Abdi American, but when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, it became dangerous to celebrate Western culture. Desperate to make a living, Abdi used his language skills to post secret dispatches, which found an audience of worldwide listeners. Eventually, though, Abdi was forced to flee to Kenya. In an amazing stroke of luck, Abdi won entrance to the U.S. in the annual visa lottery, though his route to America did not come easily. Parts of his story were first heard on the BBC World Service and This American Life. Now a proud resident of Maine, on the path to citizenship, Abdi Nor Iftin's dramatic, deeply stirring memoir is truly a story for our time: a vivid reminder of why America still beckons to those looking to make a better life.


Little Mother

Little Mother

Author: Cristina Ali Farah

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0253222966

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When civil war erupts in Somalia, cousins Domenica Axad and Barni are separated and forced to flee the country. Barni manages to eke out a living in Rome, where she works as an obstetrician. Domenica wanders Europe in a painful attempt to reunite her broken family and come to terms with her past. After ten years, the two women reunite. When Domenica gives birth to a son, Barni, also known as Little Mother, is at her side. Together with the new baby, Domenica and Barni find their Somali roots and start to heal the pain they have suffered in war and exile. This powerful yet tender novel underscores the strength of women, family, and community, and draws on the tenacious yearning for a homeland that has been denied.


Call Me American (Adapted for Young Adults)

Call Me American (Adapted for Young Adults)

Author: Abdi Nor Iftin

Publisher: Ember

Published: 2021-08-10

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1984897136

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Adapted from the adult memoir, this gripping and acclaimed story follows one boy's journey into young adulthood, against the backdrop of civil war and his ultimate immigration to America in search of a better life. Abdi Nor Iftin grew up amidst a blend of cultures, far from the United States. At home in Somalia, his mother entertained him with vivid folktales and bold stories detailing her rural, nomadic upbrinding. As he grew older, he spent his days following his father, a basketball player, through the bustling streets of the capital city of Mogadishu. But when the threat of civil war reached Abdi's doorstep, his family was forced to flee to safety. Through the turbulent years of war, young Abdi found solace in popular American music and films. Nicknamed Abdi the American, he developed a proficiency for English that connected him--and his story--with news outlets and radio shows, and eventually gave him a shot at winning the annual U.S. visa lottery. Abdi shares every part of his journey, and his courageous account reminds readers that everyone deserves the chance to build a brighter future for themselves. FOUR STARRED REVIEWS!


It Only Takes One Yes!

It Only Takes One Yes!

Author: Habso Mohamud

Publisher:

Published: 2018-09-30

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781949565027

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Nasra is the queen of the jungle who is the main character of the book. A female lead character with such a diverse background gives young children, and especially young girls, another role model whom they aren't exposed to everyday. Her wishes are parallel to the global goals, predominantly goals 1, 2, 3 4, 5, and goals 10, 16 and 17. The book displays a double meaning - the jungle refers to our nation. This book is a wonderful way to introduce children to what the SDG's (Sustainable Development Goals) would mean in simplistic and interesting terms. This book is also to engage and inspire every child on earth with the sustainable development goals. It would not only symbolize young girls who would look like myself but young boys and young girls across the globe from all walks of life would see themselves displayed in this book.


Muktar and the Camels

Muktar and the Camels

Author: Janet Graber

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2009-08-18

Total Pages: 45

ISBN-13: 0805078347

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Muktar, an eleven-year-old refugee living in a Kenyan orphanage, dreams of tending camels again, as he did with his nomadic family in Somalia, and has a chance to prove himself when a traveling librarian with an injured camel arrives at his school.


The Desert and the Sea

The Desert and the Sea

Author: Michael Scott Moore

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-05-28

Total Pages: 612

ISBN-13: 006296867X

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Michael Scott Moore, a journalist and the author of Sweetness and Blood, incorporates personal narrative and rigorous investigative journalism in this profound and revelatory memoir of his three-year captivity by Somali pirates—a riveting,thoughtful, and emotionally resonant exploration of foreign policy, religious extremism, and the costs of survival. In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International—and funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting—Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates. Subjected to conditions that break even the strongest spirits—physical injury, starvation, isolation, terror—Moore’s survival is a testament to his indomitable strength of mind. In September 2014, after 977 days, he walked free when his ransom was put together by the help of several US and German institutions, friends, colleagues, and his strong-willed mother. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history. Caught between Muslim pirates, the looming threat of Al-Shabaab, and the rise of ISIS, Moore observes the worlds that surrounded him—the economics and history of piracy; the effects of post-colonialism; the politics of hostage negotiation and ransom; while also conjuring the various faces of Islam—and places his ordeal in the context of the larger political and historical issues. A sort of Catch-22 meets Black Hawk Down, The Desert and the Sea is written with dark humor, candor, and a journalist’s clinical distance and eye for detail. Moore offers an intimate and otherwise inaccessible view of life as we cannot fathom it, brilliantly weaving his own experience as a hostage with the social, economic, religious, and political factors creating it. The Desert and the Sea is wildly compelling and a book that will take its place next to titles like Den of Lions and Even Silence Has an End.


The Last Nomad

The Last Nomad

Author: Shugri Said Salh

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2021-08-03

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 1643751743

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A remarkable and inspiring true story that "stuns with raw beauty" about one woman's resilience, her courageous journey to America, and her family's lost way of life. Winner of the 2022 Gold Nautilus Award, Multicultural & Indigenous Category Born in Somalia, a spare daughter in a large family, Shugri Said Salh was sent at age six to live with her nomadic grandmother in the desert. The last of her family to learn this once-common way of life, Salh found herself chasing warthogs, climbing termite hills, herding goats, and moving constantly in search of water and grazing lands with her nomadic family. For Salh, though the desert was a harsh place threatened by drought, predators, and enemy clans, it also held beauty, innovation, centuries of tradition, and a way for a young Sufi girl to learn courage and independence from a fearless group of relatives. Salh grew to love the freedom of roaming with her animals and the powerful feeling of community found in nomadic rituals and the oral storytelling of her ancestors. As she came of age, though, both she and her beloved Somalia were forced to confront change, violence, and instability. Salh writes with engaging frankness and a fierce feminism of trying to break free of the patriarchal beliefs of her culture, of her forced female genital mutilation, of the loss of her mother, and of her growing need for independence. Taken from the desert by her strict father and then displaced along with millions of others by the Somali Civil War, Salh fled first to a refugee camp on the Kenyan border and ultimately to North America to learn yet another way of life. Readers will fall in love with Salh on the page as she tells her inspiring story about leaving Africa, learning English, finding love, and embracing a new horizon for herself and her family. Honest and tender, The Last Nomad is a riveting coming-of-age story of resilience, survival, and the shifting definitions of home.