Somalia

Qaasim Farah
Dr. Qaasim Hersi Farah is an environmentalist, human rights activist and religious scholar, with a PhD in Environmental Law. A journalist since 1989, Qaasim has been active in six different languages, including Swahili, French and Arabic. He has written 15 books in Somali, two in Arabic and five in English, most recently his PhD dissertation, Environmental Degradation and its Control in Somalia. Among his better known works, Qaasim published his politically-influenced Proverbs to Abrogated, the first Somali dictionary of its kind, and Naming Our Clan where he objects to and denies the roots of the Somali clans.

After defending Somali women's rights according to Sharia law, writing about native waste control, and protesting the activities of Somali warlords in multiple publications, Qaasim became politically and personally endangered. Controversy around his writing led Islamic extremists and warlords to call for his assassination and to the censorship of his writing. In 2005 Qaasim left Somalia, seeking asylum in Canada as a refugee.

Faisal Ahmed Hassan
Faisal Ahmed Hassan was born in Ethiopia and has been living in Canada since 1990. He is an author and radio journalist, educated at the University of Winnipeg in Administrative Studies, Justice and Law Enforcement, Fluent in written and spoken Somali and with a working knowledge of Arabic and Italian. He has tutored students learning Somali and English. Hassan is an active writer, contributing regularly to Hanad magazine, Somalilink newspaper, as well as the on-line publications Hiiraan and Nugaal. He has self-published one book in Somali, a novel called Maandeeq, set in Mogadishu during the early stages of the Somali civil war. He is looking for translation opportunities to enable him to bring his fiction to a wider audience.