Ubah Cristina Ali Farah is a Somali-Italian writer, poet, playwright and librettist. Raised in Mogadishu, she left Somalia in 1991 at the outbreak of the civil war and has since lived in Italy and other European countries. Her writing moves across languages, places and generations, exploring the ways in which stories preserve and transform memory, identity and cultural experience. She is the author of the novels Little Mother (Madre piccola, Frassinelli, 2007; new edition 66thand2nd, 2022), winner of the Premio Vittorini; Commander of the River (Il comandante del fiume, 66thand2nd, 2014); and Stations of the Moon (Le stazioni della luna, 66thand2nd, 2021). Little Mother and Commander of the River were published in English by Indiana University Press as part of the Global African Voices series. Her work has also been translated into French, German and Dutch. Her literary practice is rooted in research, oral history and collaborative work, with a particular focus on women’s memories in the Somali diaspora, migrant narratives, multilingualism and the oral transmission of stories. In 2021, thirty years after the outbreak of the civil war, she returned to Somalia and collaborated with the United Nations Development Programme on projects exploring oral history and writing as tools for dialogue and peacebuilding. She has taught, lectured and led workshops at universities and cultural institutions across Europe, Africa, North America and Australia. She holds a PhD in African Studies from the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, where she researched Somali popular theatre.
