Maxamed Daahir Afrax

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Maxamed Daahir Afrax Ph. D. is a novelist, playwright, journalist and scholar who writes in Somali, Arabic and English. Afrax has published three novels in Somali: Guur-ku-sheeg (1975), Maana-faay (1979) and Galti-macruuf (1980), a historical novel in Arabic, Nida Al-Horiyah (1976) and several short stories, in Arabic and Somali. He wrote two plays. The first was entitled Durbaan Been ah (A Deceptive Dream) and was staged in Somalia in 1979. His major contribution in the field of theatre criticism was Somali Drama: Historical and Critical Study (1987). In his novels and plays Afrax denounces moral corruption and social injustice. When in 1980 his novel Gulti-macruuf (pseudo-civilized) began to appear in serialized form in ‘Xiddigta Oktoobar’ (a leading national daily newspaper at the time), the government took offence. The publication of the story was discontinued at its 37th episode and the author was muzzled. Soon after that, Afrax fled the country (in 1981) and has been in exile ever since. (For more information see Prof. Lidwien Kapteijns, Window on Somali Society: The Novels of Maxamed D. Afrax, in: HAL-ABUUR, Autumn/Winter issue, 1993/94). After leaving Somalia Afrax settled in Aden (Yemen), where he completed his B.A. degree (1988) and joined the Ministry of Information and Culture as head of its Theatre Research Section and, later, as assistant director of the Publishing and Translation Department before he moved to London (1991) where he is now living. While working on his Ph.D. in literature at the University of London, he founded a literary magazine in English and Somali called ‘HAL-ABUUR, Journal of Somali Literature and Culture’. Afrax is of the Majerteen clan (Omar Mahamoud) and president of the Somali PEN club.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Nadaraat fi Athaqaafah As-Soomaaliyah ('An Introduction to Somali Culture', in Arabic). ed. Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, by the Culture and Information Department, U.A.E.
  • Maana-faay : qiso (a Somali novel) ed. London : Learning Design, 1997.(first published in 1981) (reportedly the first novel written in romanized Somali script)
  • Hal-Abuur : wargeys-xilliyeedka suugaanta & dhaqanka Soomaalida, Hal-Abuur Journal / 1993
  • The 'Abwaan' as beacon : the centrality of the message in Somali literature with especial reference to the play 'Shabeelnaagoog', in: Horn of Africa / 2004
  • New, extensively revised and expanded edition of his book in Somali, Dal Dad Waayey iyo Duni Damiir Beeshay: Soomaaliya Dib ma u Dhalan Doontaa?, 2004 (A Land without Leaders in a World without Conscience: Can Somalia be Resurrected?)
  • Ashakhsiyah Aturathiyah fi Shi'r Hadraawi, in: Al-Hikmah, 135 (Feb.), pp.44-50.1987
  • A Nation of Poets, or Art-loving People? Some Aspects of the Importance of Literature in Present-day Somali Society, Hal-Abuur: Journal of Somali Literature and Culture, 1:2-4 (Autumn/Winter 1993/4), pp. 32-6., 1994
  • The Mirror of Culture: Somali Dissolution Seen Through Oral lterature’, in Ahmed I. Samatar (ed.), The Somali Challenge: from Catastrophe to Renewal, Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Reinner, pp.233-52., 1994
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