Diasporic Voices: A Conversation with Aamna, Salma, Samatar & Muna

Kayd in collaboration with Tower Hamlets, will be celebrating four Somali-British writers and their recently-published creative works: Aamna Mohdin, and her recent memoir Scattered: The Making and Unmaking of a Refugee; Salma Ibrahim and her debut novel Salutation Road; Samatar Elmi and his debut poetry collection The Epic of Cader Idris; and Muna Dahir Afrax, who edited the English translation Maana-faay, by her late father Mohamed Dahir Afrax.

Amna, Salma, Samatar and Muna will each share highlights from their work and reflect on the ways that diasporic Somalis, especially those who work in English, are re-shaping Somali storytelling practices across four different genres (non-fiction, fiction, poetry and translation).. There will also be time for audience members to ask each author about their work and creative process.

Aamna Mohdin is the Guardian’s first community affairs correspondent, reporting on the social, political and economic experiences of the UK’s diverse communities, with a particular focus on Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. She was previously a reporter at Quartz where she led the publication’s coverage of the European refugee crisis. She is the winner of the British Journalism Award 2022 and her work has been shortlisted for the British Press Awards. Her memoir Scattered: The Making and Unmaking of a Refugee, published in 2024, was longlisted for the 2025 Bread & Roses Award.

Salma Ibrahim is an author, marketer, and works for UNICEF. She also runs the marketing organization Literary Natives, helping authors of colour find their audiences. She published her first novel Salutation Road in 2024. Salutation Road has been described as a ‘beautifully told, speculative literary debut about the everyday struggles of immigration, love and letting go of a past that never really existed.’

Samatar Elmi is an award-winning writer, musician, and educator. His debut pamphlet Portrait of Colossus(flipped eye, 2021) was a PBS Choice, and his collection The Epic of Cader Idris (Bloomsbury, 2024) includes the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize-winning poem ‘The Snails’. An Obsidian Fellow and associate editor at flipped eye press, his work has appeared widely including in Poetry, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Magma and anthologised in More Fiya, Filigree, After Plath, and featured on BBC Radio 4. As Knomad Spock, his acclaimed albums have featured on BBC Radio 6, and are highly praised in Clash Magazine. He has performed at leading festivals including Latitude, Aldeburgh, Laugharne and Cheltenham, and is currently working on a new collection and fifth album.

Muna Dahir Afrax is the editor of the English version of Maana-faay, written by her late father Mohamed Dahir Afrax, an author, playwright and theatre critic who wrote in Somali, Arabic and English. A story of a family, love and secrets, Maana-fay portrays the tension between the urban and the rural and the transition from the past way of living to the urbanized and modern lifestyle.

The event will be hosted by Prof. Katherine Baxter, Professor of English Literature at Northumbria University. Her research engages with colonial and postcolonial histories and literatures of the Somali region.

Language: English & BSL

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