The collection’s title The Sea-Migrations or, Tahriib in Somali, refers to the search for a better life in another country. It is also the name of one of the poems in the collection.
This important collection is made available to English readers, in this landmark Somali-English dual language publication, through the long-standing friendship and collaboration between Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf and the leading English poet Clare Pollard.
Although Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf has lived in exile in the UK for 20 years, she is fast emerging as one of the most outstanding Somali poets, as well as 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, by which she presents compelling arguments with astonishing feats of alliteration. The key to her international popularity is in her spirit and message: her poems are classical in construction but they are unmistakeably contemporary, and they engage passionately with the themes of war and displacement which have touched the lives of an entire generation of Somalis.
