THE still unrecognised republic of Somaliland has been parading its de facto independence from its battered bigger brother, Somalia, with an international book fair in its self-styled capital, Hargeisa. Along with the reopening of a revamped international airport, the fair was intended to show the world that Somaliland is open for business, especially with the West.
At the jamboree, the literary talents of Somaliland were on display. Though Nadifa Mohamed, a novelist listed among Granta’s “Best of Young British Novelists for 2013”, was not there this year, her latest work, “The Orchard of Lost Souls”, recently published in London, was much mentioned. A largely British foreign line-up included Michela Wrong, author of books on Congo, Eritrea and Kenya; Mary Harper, author of “Getting Somalia Wrong”; a Scots poet and translator, W.N. Herbert; a Nigerian, Chuma Nwokolo; and a Kenyan poet, Phyllis Muthoni. Cheers and ululations in a packed auditorium greeted Hadraawi, Somaliland’s national poet.
The fair, now in its sixth year, is the brainchild of two diaspora Somalilanders, Jama Musse Jama, a businessman based in Italy, and Ayan Mahamoud, who lives in London, where she has run an annual Somali Week festival for several years. Prominent among the sponsors of the Hargeisa event were a number of “frontier” private-equity funds interested in oil and mineral rights. One of its unstated aims was to persuade Westerners that Somaliland is safe and stable. Compared with Somalia, whose capital, Mogadishu, is still periodically clobbered by suicide-bombers, dusty, bustling Hargeisa seems a haven of jollity and calm.
Source: The Economist
