Nadifa Mohamed

Personal life

Mohamed was born in 1981 in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Her father was a sailor in the merchant navy and her mother was a local landlady. In 1986, she moved with her family to London for what was intended to be a temporary stay. However, the civil war broke out shortly afterwards in Somalia, so they remained in the UK.

Mohamed later attended St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she studied history and politics. In 2008, she visited Hargeisa for the first time in more than a decade.

Mohamed resides in London.

Literary career

Mohamed's first novel, Black Mamba Boy (2010), described in The Guardian as "a significant, affecting book of the dispossessed", is a semi-biographical account of her father's life in Yemen in the 1930s and '40s, during the colonial period. She has said that "the novel grew out of a desire to learn more about my roots, to elucidate Somali history for a wider audience and to tell a story that I found fascinating." The book won the 2010 Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for numerous awards, including the 2010 Guardian First Book Award, the 2010 Dylan Thomas Prize, and the 2010 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. It was also long-listed for the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction.

In 2013, Mohamed released her second novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls. Set in Somalia on the eve of the civil war, the book was published by Simon & Schuster. Reviewing it in The Independent, Arifa Akbar said: "If Mohamed's first novel was about fathers and sons ... this one is essentially about mothers and daughters." In 2014, The Orchard of Lost Souls won the Somerset Maugham Award and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.

In December 2013, Mohamed was one of 36 writer and translator participants at the Doha International Book Fair's Literary Translation Summit in Qatar.

She was chosen as one of Granta magazine's "Best of Young British Novelists" in 2013, and in April 2014 was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature.

Her writing has also been published in such outlets as The Guardian and Literary Hub, as well as in the anthology New Daughters of Africa (edited by Margaret Busby, 2019), which includes poetry by Mohamed.

In June 2018, Mohamed was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative.

She joined the English Creative Writing faculty of Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2018.

Her 2021 novel, The Fortune Men, is based on the true story of Mahmood Mattan, whom her father knew. The book is about a petty criminal in Cardiff, Wales, who becomes the last man to be hanged there, wrongfully convicted of murder in 1952. In The Guardian, Ashish Ghadiali wrote of Mohamed that the novel "confirms her as a literary star of her generation", while Michael Donkor described the book as a "determined, nuanced and compassionate exposure of injustice". The Fortune Men was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, and at the 2022 Wales Book of the Year Awards won the "triple crown": taking the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award, the Wales Arts Review People's Choice Award and the overall prize for Wales Book of the Year.

Mohamed has said that her next book will be "a contemporary novel set in the world of Somali women in London".

Television work

In 2023, Mohamed was commissioned by Channel 4 to present the historical documentary Britain’s Human Zoos, about Britain's fascination, dating from the late Victorian era, with objectifying Black and Brown people in "human zoos" for the purpose of entertainment. At the 2024 Edinburgh TV Festival, Mohamed won the Best Presenter (Factual) award.

Also for Channel 4, Mohamed presented the film Churchill: Britain's Secret Apartheid, aired on 19 October 2024. In The Guardian, Phil Harrison called it a "fascinating documentary about how the people of Britain reacted when US troops arrived during the second world war, bringing promises of freedom and, paradoxically, codified racism within their segregated army. Winston Churchill seemingly wrestled with this; cheeringly, most Brits ignored it."

In December 2025, Mohamed joined the four-episode docudrama Titanic Sinks Tonight aired by BBC Two.

Awards

• 2010: Betty Trask Prize for Black Mamba Boy
• 2013: Granta "Best of Young British Novelists"
• 2014: Africa39 list of the most promising writers under the age of 40 from Sub-Saharan Africa
• 2014: Somerset Maugham Award for The Orchard of Lost Souls
• 2022: Wales Book of the Year for The Fortune Men
• 2024: Honorary degree of Doctor of Literature Honoris Causa, Royal Holloway, University of London, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to literature.

Works

Novels

• Black Mamba Boy (2010)
• The Orchard of Lost Souls (2013)
• The Fortune Men (2021)

Selected shorter writings

• "Filsan", Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4, 16 April 2013.
• "Migrants for whom the Sahara proved a graveyard started out in hope", The Guardian, 1 November 2013.
• "Sasayama", Granta 127: Japan, 25 June 2014.
• "Somalis returning to the motherland are finding their foreign ways out of favour", The Guardian, 11 September 2015.
• "Britain’s clampdown on FGM is leaving young girls traumatised", The Guardian, 7 September 2017.
• "How many dead Somalis does it take for us to care?", The Guardian, 23 October 2017.
• "What We Lost in the Grenfell Tower Fire", LitHub, 24 October 2017.

References

References

1. "Nadifa Mohamed".
2. (19 September 2024). "Spotlight: Nadifa Mohamed". Africa 39.
3. (27 May 2021). "The Fortune Men".
4. "Ms Nadifa Mohamed". Royal Holloway, University of London.
5. (January 2022). "Faculty, Creative Writing Program". [[New York University]].
6. "Author Profile: Nadifa Mohamed". HarperCollins.
7. (21 April 2011). "WDN Interview with Nadifa Mohamed: The Author of Black Mamba Boy". WardheerNews.
8. "Nadifa Mohamed". Simon and Schuster.
9. (26 February 2016). "Nadifa Mohamed - Modern History and Politics, 2000". St. Hilda's College.
10. (April 2018). "Flash fiction from Nadifa Mohamed".
11. Taylor, Cathrine. (2 January 2010). "First novels from Simon Lelic, Nadifa Mohamed, Alan Monaghan and Ru Freeman". The Guardian.
12. Akbar, Arifa. (15 January 2010). "Black Mamba Boy, By Nadifa Mohamed". The Independent.
13. Allfrey, Ellah. (21 June 2013). "Nadifa Mohamed in conversation with Ellah Allfrey". Rift Valley Institute.
14. Page, Benedicte. (29 October 2010). "Guardian first book award shortlist revealed". The Guardian.
15. (28 October 2010). "Somali author Nadifa Mohamed up for first book prize". BBC News.
16. "Shortlist announced for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2010". BookTrust.
17. (17 March 2010). "Orange Prize for Fiction announces 2010 longlist". The Independent.
18. Jaggi, Maya. (14 September 2013). "The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed – review". The Guardian.
19. Davies, Rhiannon. (16 August 2013). "The Orchard of Lost Souls".
20. Akbar, Arifa. (16 August 2013). "Book review: The Orchard of Lost Souls, By Nadifa Mohamed". The Independent.
21. (22 July 2014). "Dylan Thomas Prize: Swansea University reveals longlist". BBC News.
22. "Doha International Book Fair Opens". Marhaba.
23. (2013). "Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4". Granta.
24. (April 2014). "Nadifa Mohamed". [[Hay Festival]].
25. Busby, Margaret. (10 April 2014). "Africa39: how we chose the writers for Port Harcourt World Book Capital 2014". The Guardian.
26. "Nadifa Mohamed". The Guardian.
27. Mansfield, Katie. (19 June 2019). "Obioma, Okojie and Evaristo join Africa Writes line-up".
28. Busby, Margaret. (9 March 2019). "From Ayòbámi Adébáyò to Zadie Smith: meet the New Daughters of Africa". The Guardian.
29. Flood, Alison. (28 June 2018). "Royal Society of Literature admits 40 new fellows to address historical biases". The Guardian.
30. (2 July 2018). "Nadifa Mohamed to Join Royal Holloway English Creative Writing Faculty". Royal Holloway, University of London.
31. "Nadifa Mohamed Q&A".
32. Vincent, Sally. (1 November 2021). "How a 17-year-old newspaper article inspired Nadifa Mohamed to Booker success".
33. Ghadiali, Ashish. (25 May 2021). "The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed review – a miscarriage of justice revisited". The Guardian.
34. Donkor, Michael. (28 May 2021). "The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed review – injustice exposed". The Guardian.
35. Jones, Rebecca. (14 September 2021). "Booker Prize 2021 shortlist: 'Absorbing global stories of life and death'". BBC.
36. Flood, Alison. (14 September 2021). "Nadifa Mohamed is sole British writer to make Booker prize shortlist". The Guardian.
37. (2022-07-29). "English-language Book of the Year 2022".
38. (4 October 2023). "Channel 4 Commissions Britain's Human Zoos". Channel 4.
39. Whittock, Jesse. (4 October 2023). "'It Was Like Early Reality TV': Channel 4 Orders History Doc "Britain's Human Zoos" On Shocking Victorian Entertainment Practice".
40. Coroneos, Hannah. (19 September 2024). "Nadifa Mohamed Wins Best Presenter at the Edinburg TV Festival 2024".
41. (19 October 2024). "TV tonight {{!}} Churchill: Britain's Secret Apartheid". The Guardian.
42. (28 December 2025). "Titanic Sinks Tonight review – it’s like you’re reliving that terrifying night". [[The Guardian]].
43. Lea, Richard. (27 August 2010). "Guardian first book award longlist ranges around the world". The Guardian.
44. Quinn, Annalisa. (15 April 2013). "Granta's 'Best of Young British Novelists' Shows A 'Disunited Kingdom'". [[Granta]].
45. "Africa39". Hay Festival.
46. Hassan, Yusuf M.. (2 July 2014). "Somaliland: Author Nadifa Mohamed Wins the Somerset Maugham Awards 2014". Somaliland Sun.
47. (16 July 2024). "Author Nadifa Mohamed awarded Honorary Doctorate". Royal Holloway, University of London.