Ubah Cristina Ali Farah (born 1973 in
Verona
Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...
, Italy) is an Italian writer of mixed Italian and Somali descent.
Biography
Born in Italy to a Somali father and an Italian mother, Farah grew up in
Mogadishu
Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has ...
, the capital of Somalia. She attended an Italian school there until the
Somalia Civil War broke out in 1991.
Farah and her family subsequently relocated to
Pécs
Pécs ( , ; ; Slovak language, Slovak: ''Päťkostolie''; also known by #Name, alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the fifth largest city in Hungary, on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the c ...
, Hungary, but then later moved back to her birthplace, Verona, Italy. There, she obtained an ''Italian Lettere'' University degree at
La Sapienza University
The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a Public university, public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is ...
in
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
, since 2013 she resides in Brussels (Belgium).
Literary career
Ubah Cristina Ali Farah is a Somali Italian poet, novelist, playwright, librettist and oral performer. She has published three novels, ''Madre piccola'' (Little mother); ''Il comandante del fiume'' (The commander of the river); and ''Le stazioni della luna'' (The stations of the moon). In 2011,
Indiana University Press
Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. IU Press publishes ...
published ''Madre piccola'', translated by
Giovanna Bellesia. She holds a Ph.D. in African Studies and has been invited to present her work in numerous countries worldwide. She is the recipient of the Lingua Madre and Vittorini Prizes. She participated in the University of Iowa’s
International Writing Program
The International Writing Program (IWP) is a writing residency for international artists in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Since 2014, the program offers online courses to many writers and poets around the world. Since its inception in 1967, the I ...
(2017), in the MEET (Maison des Écrivains Étrangers et des Traducteurs) and Art Omi Residencies (2018). She has been a
Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow and La Marelle Writer in residence in 2019. Recently she worked on a rewriting of the
Antigone
ANTIGONE (Algorithms for coNTinuous / Integer Global Optimization of Nonlinear Equations), is a deterministic global optimization solver for general Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programs (MINLP).
History
ANTIGONE is an evolution of GloMIQO, a global ...
and on a libretto taken from found stories in
Matera
Matera (, ; Neapolitan language, Materano: ) is a city and the capital of the Province of Matera in the regions of Italy, region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy. With a history of continuous occupation dating back to the Palaeolithic (10th mi ...
. She has just taken up an artist-in-residence fellowship at Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies for the first semester 2020.
In addition to her fictional works, Farah has also published a book on the history, rise, and common themes of
Somali folk theatre from 1940 to 1990.
In November 2020 Meet Editions will publish a bilingual (French and Italian) collection of her short stories. She is working with Belgian artist and illustrator Goele Dewanckel on a Serigraphic book to be published next year by Else Edizioni.
She is currently a
UNDP
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...
consultant for a project on Oral Historiography for
Peace Building in Somalia.
See also
*
Italian Somalians
References
Bibliography
* ''Ai confini del verso: Poesia della migrazione in italiano'', (At the boundaries of verse. Poetry of migration
Le Lettere, Florence, 2006.
* ''A New Map: The poetry of Migrant Writers in Italy'', texts collected by Mia Lecomte et Luigi Bonaffini, Green Integer, Los Angeles, 2007.
* ''Madre piccola'' ("Little Mother")
2007.
*''Il comandante del fiume'' (The commander of the river), 66th and 2nd, 2014
* ''LATITUDE Rethinking Power Relations – for a decolonised and non-racial world
2021.''
* Simone Brioni. The Somali Within. Language, Race and Belonging in 'Minor' Italian Literature. Cambridge: Legenda 2015.
External links
*https://web.archive.org/web/20030718181726/http://www.el-ghibli.provincia.bologna.it/chisiamo/ali-farah.html
*http://www.italosomali.org/Cristina.htm
*https://www.goethe.de/prj/lat/en/exp/far.html
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farah, Cristina Ali
1973 births
Living people
Italian people of Somali descent
Somalian people of Italian descent
21st-century Italian writers
Italian women writers
Somalian writers
Sapienza University of Rome alumni
Writers from Verona
People from Mogadishu