SOMALIA-BORN AUTHOR SHORTLISTED FOR MAJOR PRIZES

Considering what I have just posted (see directly below), the world is full of weird coincidences.

BREAKING NEWS is that a young Somali writer by the name of Nadifa Mohamed has been shortlisted for the 10,000-pound Guardian First Book Award. 

Her novel, Black Mamba Boy, is also shortlisted for the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize, worth a cool 30,000 pounds.

Nadifa Mohamed spent her early years in Hargeisa, Somaliland, before moving to the United Kingdom.  Her book is evidently based on her physical and emotional relocation, because it describes a journey from her Somali homeland to Port Talbot, in Wales.

Other books in the Guardian shortlist of three novels and two non-fiction studies are Boxer, Beetle, by Ned Beauman, Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto, by Maile Chapman, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, by Kathryn Schulz, and Romantic Moderns, by Alexandra Harris.

The winners of both literary prizes will be announced on 1 December.