, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

) is an Italian writer of Somali

Somalia

Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

 and Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 origin.

Biography

Born in Italy to a Somali father and an Italian mother, Farah grew up in Mogadishu

Mogadishu

Mogadishu , popularly known as Xamar, is the largest city in Somalia and the nation's capital. Located in the coastal Benadir region on the Indian Ocean, the city has served as an important port for centuries....

, the capital of Somalia

Somalia

Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

. She attended an Italian school there until the Somalia Civil War broke out in 1991.

Farah and her family subsequently relocated to Pecs

Pécs

Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya county...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, but then later moved to her birthplace, Verona, Italy. There, she obtained an Italian Lettere University degree in 2001 at La Sapienza University in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, where she currently resides.

Literary career

Since 1999, Farah has been involved in intercultural education with projects developed for students, teachers and female immigrants revolving around tales, post-colonial literature and immigration topics. In these areas, she has collaborated with various Italian associations and NGOs such as Cies, Candelaria, Kel'lam, the Intercultural Forum of Caritas

Caritas (charity)

Caritas Internationalis is a confederate of 164 Roman Catholic relief, development and social service organisations operating in over 200 countries and territories worldwide....

, and l'Ass. Prezzemolo.

For some time, Farah also contributed to Somali

Somali language

The Somali language is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Its nearest relatives are Afar and Oromo. Somali is the best documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies beginning before 1900....

 linguistic studies at the linguistic department of the Third University of Rome

Third University of Rome

The University of Rome III also known as Roma Tre University is a public research university in the city of Rome, in the Lazio region of central Italy...

, participating in the "Scritture migranti" ("migrant writing") conference that was held between November–December 2004 in Campidoglio in Rome. She participated in the fifth Migrant Italian Writers Seminar organized by Sagarana in July 2005.

In December 2005, she presented her work at Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 (USA) during the "Migrations and Literature in contemporary Italy" conference, and at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 during the "Italians tales" course presented by Paolo Valesio, chair of the Italian department.

At the Literary Festival in Mantova in September 2007, Farah participated as a storyteller at the WikiAfrica Workshop and the WikiAfrica Postcard, both projects conceived by Fondazione Lettera27. In October of the same year, she gave a lecture about the Somali diaspora at the "The Last Caravanes of the Horn of Africa

Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...

" meeting in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

.

Farah is president of the Migra news agency, and a writer for Caffè newspaper. She also writes for other periodicals and Italian magazines such as Repubblica, Malepeggio, l'Europeo, Carta, Magiordomus, Accattone and Liberazione.

In Italy, her novels and poetry have been published in various magazines such as Nuovi Argomenti, Quaderni del 900, Pagine, Sagarana, El Ghibli, Caffè, Crocevia, and in the anthologies Ai confini del verso: Poesia della migrazione in italiano ("Poetry of migration in Italy") and A New Map: The poetry of Migrant Writers in Italy, edited by Mia Lecomte.

In 2006, Farah won the national literary competition, "Lingua Madre" ("Mother Tongue"), promoted by the Women Thoughts Studies Center. She was also honored by the city of Torino at the International Torino Book Fair.

In 2007, she published her first novel, Madre piccola ("Little Mother").

External links

• http://www.el-ghibli.provincia.bologna.it/chisiamo/ali-farah.html
• http://www.italosomali.org/Cristina.htm