Maxamed Xasan ‘Alto’ studied in Somalia, the USSR, and Finland, where he now lives. From 2004 to 2016 he worked as a teacher of the Somali language at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is a writer and freelance journalist, translator and linguist and has published and edited many books in the Somali language. He has helped to organise London’s Somali Week Festival, the largest festival of Somali arts and culture outside the Horn of Africa, and is a frequent speaker there. He has translated with the Poetry Translation Centre since its establishment in 2004, notably co-translating The Sea-Migrations by Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf with Clare Pollard in 2017, selected poems of Maxamed Ibraahin Warsame ‘Hadraawi’ in 2013, and ‘“Hagarlaawe” the collected poems of Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac ‘Gaarriye’’ in 2007.
Translated Poems
