The Sea-Migrations

£12

The Sunday Times Poetry Book of the Year 2018

Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf is fast emerging as one of the most outstanding Somali poets. Although she has lived in exile in the UK for twenty years, through recordings, TV and the internet her poems are well-known among Somalis both at home and abroad. A powerful woman poet in a literary tradition still largely dominated by men, she is a master of the major Somali poetic forms, including the prestigious gabay which presents compelling arguments with mesmerising feats of alliteration. The key to her international popularity is in her spirit and message: her poems are classical in construction but they are unmistakably contemporary, and they engage passionately with the themes of war and displacement, which have touched the lives of an entire generation of Somalis.

The collection’s title The Sea-Migrations or, Tahriib in Somali, refers to the search for a better life in another country. This important collection of poems is made available to English readers through the long-standing friendship and collaboration between Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf and the leading English poet Clare Pollard.

“Sometimes a book reminds us of poetry’s real electric force in the world. Yusuf is a brilliant young Somali poet living in exile in London, who takes ‘history’s point/to ink a beautiful literature.’… Translated into lapel-grabbing alliterative verse by Clare Pollard, these piercingly direct poems throw open a window onto a war-torn country and its wretchedly displaced people.”
– Jeremy Noel-Tod

ISBN: 9781739894818
Format: Paperback
Size: 216 x 138mm, 136 pages
Languages: Somali, English
Co-publisher: Bloodaxe Books