Ahmed Ismail Yusuf, Ahmed Ismail Yusuf

The Lion's Binding Oath and Other Stories (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Religious and ethnic conflict may be the Horn of Africa's most enduring recent legacy. But beneath its recent history of war and displacement lies human stories-families, clans, lovers, neighbors, and friends, all bound together through common cultural, religious, and historical ties.

The Lion's Binding Oath, Ahmed Ismail Yusuf's collection of short stories, introduces readers to the people of Somalia and their struggles: their humanity, faith, identity, friendship, and family bonds, as whispers of war grow louder around them. Through stories that span the years before and during Somali's civil war, Yusuf weaves together Somalia's political, social, and religious conflicts with portrayals of the country's love of poetry, music, and soccer.

Yusuf's collection is a powerful examination of love and resilience in a country torn apart by war, and written with deep compassion for the lives of its characters.

Ahmed Ismail Yusuf has lived in Minneapolis since fleeing Somalia in the late 80s. He did not speak English when he arrived, he was a high-school dropout, and he was not sure what his actual age was. Today he has two college degrees and is the author of Somalis in Minnesota, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. In 2017, The History Theatre of St. Paul, Minnesota produced his short play, "A Crack in the Sky," a memoir about how Yusuf found inspiration in Maya Angelou and Muhammad Ali during his early days as an immigrant to the U.S.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Catalyst Press
• Seitenzahl: 220
• Erscheinungstermin: 19. Juni 2018
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781946395085
• Artikelnr.: 54708701

Autorenporträt

From Ahmed Ismail Yusuf

Raised as a nomad in Somalia, at the age of nine or eight (no one knows the exact year I was born) I surprised my mother at eight o'clock one morning, when I stood right in front of her and told her that I was tired of herding sheep and goats.

Fast forward to several years later in Harlem, New York: a relative of mine dumped two dozen books on my lap and said, "Here, you seem to have a lot of free time in your hands. Why don't you do some reading?" I was a high school dropout, my country was sitting on a hissing volcano that later exploded in the form of a civil war, and I was the only one in my family who escaped the nomadic life to the U.S.A. But I was hopelessly lost!

Embarrassed that I had never read a whole book even in Somali, I collected the books, "a challenge," from my relative's hands, realizing that I couldn't say aloud, "I have never read a book in my life!" Among the books was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Mayo Angelou, which I picked for no particular purpose whatsoever. It took me two weeks to finish it but I must have absorbed it all, for I know that book changed my life and I am forever grateful!

This book later led me to the door steps of Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut, where an academic advisor with a mission to teach and the will to match, forced me to take an English class (my worst nightmare now) with a professor who, despite the maze of confusion in me, guided me and infused me with the love of writing.

Sincerely,

Ahmed I. Yusuf

Inhaltsangabe

TABLE OF CONTENTS
A Slow Moving Night 1-19
The Mayxaano Chronicles
1. A Man of Means
2. Don't Lose
3. A Thorn in the Sole
4. A Whip of Words 21-50
5. Dissonance 51-71
A Delicate Hope 73-97
The Vulture Has Landed
The Lion's Binding Oath 99-125