Poetess and hyper-sensitive writer, Ubah Farah lives between Brussels and the many countries where she is called for writing residencies or literary festivals. His recent return to Mogadishu, after 31 years of exile, encourages him to take up his pen again.
Naturally shy, Ubah Cristina Ali Farah speaks with a soft voice. When the words don’t come, she hides her face in her hands and ends her sentences with a smile. His hyper-sensitivity, in literature, translates into an inimitable style. Each of his sentences probes the depths of the human soul. Example, taken from his latest novel, A sambouk crosses the sea (Meet, 2020), when a fisherwoman sees her husband leaving for the Resistance during the war: “ He went away stubbornly, without even looking back, and that was how my mother suffered from abandonment and betrayal: the husband espoused another cause, to his detriment. “.
The milestones in his life? “ Childhood, war, the diaspora she replies. She was born in 1973 in Verona, Italy, where her parents met. Her father, a Somali, was a student, and her mother, an Italian, the daughter of a barber and a domestic worker, was the only one to have studied in her family. She decided to follow her husband to Mogadishu in 1976, when dreams of independence still seemed within reach.
Exfiltrated by an Italian army helicopter
Ubah Farah grew up there between his younger brother, his mother, an Italian school teacher, and his economist father, ” tossed about by the political turmoil that has intellectuals like him thrown in jail », under the dictatorship of Syad Barré.
The war forever changed his life, like that of all Somalis, delivered since 1990 to nagging clan conflicts, then to the Islamist terrorism of the Shebabs. She left Somalia at the age of 18 with her first son, a baby a few months old, on board an Italian army helicopter. First taking refuge in Pécs, in Hungary, where she follows her mother recruited in a high school, she returns to Verona then settles in Rome in 1997 with Giuliano, her high school sweetheart – the son of her biology teacher – whom she met at 15 in Mogadishu, then found again at 19.
First novel about the “tanties” of exile
Her second life, in Rome for 18 years, saw her become a cultural mediator, very involved in the lives of migrants and writing, through associations. After a visit to his refugee father in the Netherlands, at age 24, with only one lens in his eye, the click of writing occurs. ” I could see up close, and I couldn’t see anything at the same time. In this double view, I realized that my story, which scared people in Italy, was not so special, and that what I had to say was important. “.
In 2001, she obtained a doctorate in letters with a thesis on Brazilian literature, and in 2007 published her first book, Madre Piccola (“Mère petite”), well received by critics.
She depicts her environment, these “aunties” of the diaspora who take care of children after the war, choosing to be mothers without a biological link – as in all of Africa’s conflicts. But above all, she asks this question linked to exile: What do we do when we have lost all our references, our environment, our relationships and we are disoriented? The answer: real relationships and self-definition by telling your story to others, which will help you get back on your feet. “.
Return to Mogadishu after 31 years of exile
Today, this admirer of Toni Morrisson, William Faulkner and Jesmyn Ward spends her time between her family home in Brussels, where she followed with their two children in 2013 Giuliano, also an economist, and her many trips to Europe and Africa. for conferences and writing residencies. She’s about to repost Madre Piccola at Zulma in French, and is working on the publication of a collection of short stories, in which she will discuss her recent return to Mogadishu, in April 2022.
” I have to take the time to digest this journey emotionally “, she says. She let herself be dragged into this unexpected return by a Somali friend from Nairobi, Kenya. After 31 years of absence, she does not recognize anything, the buildings have grown. The beach, once empty, is crowded. ” Mogadishu is so insecure! I did so many dangerous things to see old places, like my house, which is in the area controlled by the shebabs. It used to be a posh neighborhood and now it’s all in ruins “.
She fell on young militiamen drugged and alcoholic. They called her ” slut despite her veil, because she was on the move in the city, in the evening, with her friend. She scolded them, reminding them that she was old enough to be their mother. Touched, a 20-year-old began to escort them. Ubah Farah experienced this journey filled with memories as a ” conclusion, closure “. She felt the need to wash it off, by diving into a swimming pool one evening in Nairobi.