“An old African proverb says, when an elder dies, a library is burned. I am not yet an elder, but I do feel like a portal between two worlds. I am the last person in my immediate family who holds this particular library of knowledge. As the years pass, the sense of urgency I feel about sharing my experiences with my children and the world grows”
.
.
.
I’ve become more and more fond of memoir as a way of experiencing life through the lens of someone else’s existence 💫
Shugri Said Salh gifts us a glimpse into her life as a young girl growing up in a nomadic Somali tribe. Sent at the age of the six from her family in the city to live with her grandmother, her beloved Ayeeyo, in the desert, she experienced a life governed by the seasons and the perpetual search for water and adequate grazing for livestock. She talks about the difficulties and dangers of that life, but also some of its beauties including a strong tradition of storytelling


Female Genital Mutilation was practised in Shugri’s tribe and she describes her experience of FGM in heart-breaking detail. There is a graphic content warning at the start of that passage. Shugri shows huge resilience and bravery time and time again over the course of her story. Escaping from civil war in Somalia she fled first to Kenya and then to Canada and finally the United States where she now practises as a nurse


Shugri truly is a portal between two worlds, and I’m so glad to have had the opportunity to read her story and to have experienced, in a small way, a completely different culture and way of life. Huge thanks to Algonquin Books for my gifted copy and for including me on the blog tour for The Last Nomad; Coming of Age in the Somali Desert

4.5 stars!

"In nomadic society, women carried the burden of keeping the family and clan honor. The division of labor between men and women was crystal clear and unchanging: men hunted, herded camels, and went to war, while women performed all the essential domestic chores."

It is sometimes spine-chilling how societies across the world have this in common. To slot a woman into a box and then tell her that it is for her own good, when in fact, it's nothing but patriarchy. "I love you, but only if you conform to these rules that we have laid" is a common thing globally. Yes, even in the so-called 'modern' societies.
So when I got the chance to read Somalian author Shugri Said Salh's memoir, The Last Nomad, I was instantly intrigued. How similar or different are our cultures? How are men and women treated? How? What? Why?

In The Last Nomad, Shugri Said Salh (SSS) details her life as a nomad in Somalia, her relationship with the desert, where she lived a nomadic life with her ayeeyo (grandmother), her equation with her parents and siblings and with the people around her, how she saw the world and how the world saw her, the rules that the nomadic society lives by, her move to a city and how she dealt with city life, how her life turned out under a dictatorial father who advocated equality in education across genders, her watching the nomadic clans warring around her, her life in a politically turbulent country, and her eventual flight from it as civil war erupted, is detailed in here in a way that will pull you in and transport you into a world that you probably didn't hear of because of other political events (a la America bombing Iraq) happening during the same time.

SSS doesn't sugarcoat anything. Everything is told with utter honesty and sometimes, the rawness can hurt and horrify in equal measure. The traditions she speaks of, the bloodbath that occurred as Somali killed Somali in the civil war, the extremely orthodox treatment of women - there's so much that will anger us. But how can we say anything? We just need to absorb. We need to learn. We need to understand. The onus isn't on SSS to educate anyone, but she does anyway. She tells us, in no uncertain terms, that everyone has struggles and horrors of their own. And she gave me a wide open glimpse into her life, one that is way different than what I know.

I understand. I appreciate. I admire. The strength, the honesty, the joy of one's culture, the pain of unfair tradition, the loving of one's culture while accepting its faults, because no matter what, it will forever remain a part of who you are.

Kudos, Shugri Said Salh!

<i>An old African proverb says, “When an elder dies, a library is burned.” I am not yet an elder, but I do feel like a portal between two worlds . . .</i>

In this newly-published memoir, Shugri Said Salh takes the reader from the time she was six years old, and sent to live with her grandmother in the desert, to her escape from war-torn Somalia and the beginning of her new life in Canada.

The thing the reader ought to know up front is that there is some graphic stuff in this memoir. Some of it is what you might expect when a country is ripped apart by war, when the social order is destroyed, but much of it is age-old custom, which firmly maintains women as subordinate to men—a situation that considerably worsened when a new and ultra-conservative form of Islam spread across that part of Africa. As always, war, and male-dominated reinterpretation of Islam’s holy writ, is toughest on the old, young, and disabled, and most especially on the women.

Not that women don’t have their place in maintaining customs that make the rest of the world flinch. When she was eight years old, it was the women of the clan who took her to be “circumcised.” With the clarity and dignity that highlights the entire book, Shugri Said Salh explains the thinking behind this cruel custom, and why it’s still carried out to this day.

Dignity is a significant theme in this memoir. Early on, she lovingly describes her ayeeyo (grandmother)’s life in the desert, which was precariously balanced between drought and predatory animals; the grandmother never knew how to read, but her insight and compassion, her strength, are conveyed through the stream of small anecdotes that make up the early chapters, demonstrating the powerful effect ayeeyo had on Shugri Said Sahl’s life.

The opening might seem confusing, as Shugri Said Salh does some jinking back and forth in time, but the narrative settles into a linear progression fairly soon, particularly when she is able to rely on her own memories, rather than piecing early childhood glimpses with what she was subsequently told by other relatives.

One of the most complex of her relatives is her father, a teacher and a holy man, who insisted that his many daughters (he had twenty-three children by various wives over the decades) be educated, in spite of the prevailing custom that only sons ought to be schooled. Her father said, “if you educate a son, you educate one person, but if you educate a daughter, you educate the whole community.” But this father’s teaching method was extreme physical cruelty: if his children did not memorize lessons to his satisfaction. His beatings resulted in emotional as well as physical trauma.

After her beloved mother died, she ended up living in various places, including an orphanage, which was her first exposure to white people and Western culture. She describes, with vivid images, life in Mogadishu, which was slowly eroding toward war. Again, with that sense of humane balance, she describes the benefits of living under the dictator who controlled the country, before getting to the fallout of the dictator’s less admirable practices.

And after that, the memoir takes a turn toward grim as she describes life as a teenager in a country descending into the horrors of war. But the book is not all horror. She learned the art of storytelling from her grandmother, and that shows in the skillful way the book is written. There are countless anecdotes that paint vivid glimpses of various personalities, including the strong Somali appreciation for poetry, all woven together with a thread of humor. Even in the midst of terrible destruction, there are moments of laughter, such as when a fine red dress has the unexpected result of causing a camel to become, ahem, amorous.

The book does need advisory warnings of all kinds, including animal cruelty as well as depiction of the human side of grim statistics about women, but Shugri Said Sahl never lets the reader forget the dignity, generosity, and worth of the women who helped shape her into who she is today. I began this book intending to dip into it over a series of nights and ended up so engrossed I read it all in one sitting.

4.5 stars

Compelling, transformative, and reflective—this memoir of "the last nomad" is a must-read for fans of memoir and nonfiction.

Writing: ★★★★
Engagement: ★★★★★
Pacing: ★★★ 1/2

The Last Nomad is one of those books where it arrived to my house, I said "oh, let me get a feel for the writing...I'll just read the first page" and then 45 minutes later, I realized I was several chapters in and fully, completely invested in the story.

The best type of book, am I right?

Shugri Said Salh's compelling memoir details her experience as her family's "last" nomad. Now, as she immediately explains, Salh knows she is not the literal "last nomad" in the world. Not by a long shot. But for her familial line, generations of whom had existed similar lives as nomads in the Somali deserts, Salh IS their last nomad—her upbringing as a nomad transformed into her adulthood as a mother living in present-day suburban California.

What does it mean to straddle two lifestyles, worlds, and realities so dramatically?

From survival to excess, the hunt for water to the overabundance of brand options, the intimate oral histories of your elders to the immediacy of the now at the cost of the internal memory, The Last Nomad highlight's Salh's desire to record her story for posterity and for her children to keep the link to the past within her and her family. And, luckily, for us readers too. She quotes the African proverb, "when an elder dies, a library burns" and with this poignant remark as a touchstone, she walks us through her life experiences.

I don't want to get too specific with her stories, as it would merely be a pale regurgitation of Salh's own words, so take my word for it—The Last Nomad is one-of-a-kind. It'll linger with me for some time.

Many thanks to the publish for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

nomadic-life, Somalia, Canada, civil-war, refugees, adaptability, inner-strength, family, family-dynamics, cultural-heritage, culture-shock, clan-feud, biography, memoir*****

Goats, camels, family. The nomadic life Shugri knew of the Somali is gone now, destroyed by civil/denominational wars. Some parts of that life were wonderful and life-affirming, not so much for women and girls in most cases. But the reality of war in your town/house/everywhere you try to go is what PTSD is made of. How fortunate the people who have never had the hard realities of war impressed upon their lives and souls. And the assimilation of a totally foreign culture/language is a Herculean task. Peppered throughout the book are good Somali proverbs recounted to preserve the good things about heritage and honor the strong women who came before.
I requested and received a free temporary ebook copy from Algonquin Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

Shugri Said Salh is sent at age six to live with her nomadic grandmother, traversing the East African desert. She learns to love the animals and lifestyle of nomadic life, but war causes her to be the last of her family to learn the nomad life. As Shugri Said Salh avoids the violence that tears through her homeland, she finds herself a nomad in her new life, as well. “The Last Nomad” is a brave story of life, traditions, and change.

This memoir is a remarkable and inspiring story of one woman’s determination and bravery. As she transitions between nomadic life and city life she finds herself to be resilient and brave. But there are some changes that she can’t brave her way through. War, changing social climates, and religious movements swirl around her life and make her new nomadic life out of a different kind of necessity.

I enjoyed the open honesty Shugri Said Salh speaks with when sharing her life. She shares the good and the bad with clarity. Her vast life experiences allow her now to look back in fondness on her time in the desert, but also allow her to see the good and bad of her current life.

If you are looking to explore another culture and find deeper understanding, this book is an excellent read. Shugri Said Salh’s story is inspiring and unique. I gave the book 4 stars!

Thanks to Algonquin books for including me in their blog book tour and pairing with NetGalley to send me an eArc in exchange for my honest review!

B O O K • R E V I E W • 4☆

The Last Nomad is a beautiful memoir by @shugrisalh detailing her early life living with her nomadic grandmother in the deserts of Somalia and later fleeing the county - first to Kenya, then To Canada - as civil war ravaged her homeland.

Salh lives up to her family's repuation for sharing captivating oral history, infusing beauty and wonder into the Somali desert. Her story made me appreciate the beauty in a simpler way of life, unencumbered by the restrictions of modern society.

Not that life in there wasn't without its hardships. The sections on sexual assault and female genital mutilation were particularly difficult to read and I encourage everyone to consider the trigger warnings before reading. The author so kindly shared these warnings in the book before the relevant section on female genital mutilation.

Salh's story was also a wonderful reminder that everyone has a life history that we know nothing of that has shaped who we are. We may be removed from our homes and move on to new chapters in our lives, but will always carry a piece of our beginnings with us.

I recommend this one to anyone looking for exquisitely written memoir about women with inspiring strength and fortitude.

Thanks to @algonquinbooks and @librofm for my gifted copies 💕 I highly recommend incorporating the audiobook on this one as the narrator was spectacular!

This is a fascinating account of the life of a young girl growing up in a nomadic family in Somalia. Reading like a novel, the author provides an accounting of her life beginning when she was six years old and is sent to live with her nomadic grandmother in the desert. There she learns to herd goats and how to protect them from lions and hyenas. Then she writes of her life in Somali cities, escaping war-torn Somalia, life as a refugee in Kenya, then her journey to Canada and eventually to California. She finds love and graduates from nursing school with honors. Filled with fascinating details of her culture, I was totally immersed in this amazing memoir.

The book opens with the following –
“I am the last nomad. My ancestors traveled the East African desert in search of grazing land for their livestock, and the most precious resource of all—water. When they exhausted the land and the clouds disappeared from the horizon, their accumulated ancestral knowledge told them where to move next to find greener pastures. They loaded their huts and belongings onto their most obedient camels and herded their livestock to a new home.”

Shugri honors her ayeeyo (grandmother) whom she saw as “poetic, regal, and resilient.” She taught Sughri to honor herself, to see herself as important, and not to give in to the demands of men. She instilled in Sughri courage and confidence. Who Shugri is today was shaped by her loving ayeeyo. And while Shugri’s abusive father had his faults, he was a teacher and insisted that his daughters be educated. He taught them the adage that “if you educate a son, you educate one person, but if you educate a daughter, you educate the whole community.” I loved her sister Abshiro was also very brave - she took in all her siblings after their mother’s death and she stood up to men to protect her family.

Shugri led a life of innocence in the Somali desert until she was eight years old when she underwent female genital mutilation. “In Somalia, the clitoris is blamed for all humanity’s troubles - the root of all evil, so to speak.” The procedure itself is horrifying alone, but I never realized the lifelong agony it caused.

While life was extremely difficult, there were many moments of humor in her life – peeing on a lion in the bushes, finding that her red dress sexually aroused a camel, and her fear of escalators.

I loved her beautiful description of life in Mogadishu before the war tore it apart – “Religion was practiced with kindness, and cultures were valued.”

Like Afghanistan, Somalia went from being a country where people (particularly women) had rights and freedom to one where tyrants used the shield of religion to oppress and eventually kill half a million people. “On December 31, 1990, Somalia entered into full-blown war.” It became unsafe to leave their homes - food became scarce, clan turned against clan. Most of the world was unaware of their suffering because their focus was on Iraq. This was the time of Operation Desert Storm.

In the end, she mourns the loss of the Somali culture and identity, even the nomadic way of life, to the restrictions of Wahhabism. She laments what she loves about her culture but also is brutally honest with what she sees as its hypocrisy. She is heartbroken by the violence inflicted by Somalis on Somalis.

I was astounded by just how resilient Shugri is. She adapted quickly as life’s circumstances changed for her. I love learning about other cultures and am thankful to Shugri for helping me better understand the life of women in Somalia. I admire the strength and courage it took for her survival. But as she writes, “Survival is woven into the fabric of who I am.”

“I am the last nomad…I am the last person in my direct line to have once lived like that, and now I feel like the sole keeper of my family’s stories.”

I highly recommend this beautifully written and mesmerizing memoir.

Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a standout memoir that is sure to become a classic. Many memoirs contain unique and essential stories, but this one is above and beyond because the author truly has storytelling in her blood, as you will learn in this riveting book about life in and exodus from Somalia.

Shugri has so many varied experiences, and she takes everything in while somehow retaining her incredible strength and belief in herself that also ensures her survival in the unforgiving desert.

Whether Shugri is trying to keep a camel under control in the desert, going up against a bully or her own father at a boarding school run by Canadian social workers, or witnessing her neighbors being shot in front of her eyes as civil war breaks out, she is able to keep going, still trust people enough to give and accept help, and continue to tell the stories of Somali women.

As the Somali proverb goes, "when an elder dies, a library is burned," and I am so thankful that Shugri shared this story that contains many universal truths about being human and how oppression hurts everyone.

Thanks to @algonquinbooks for the ARC of this beautiful memoir by @shugrisalh!

In The Last Nomad, the author, Shugri Said Salh, talks about how poets are important in Somali culture, and that is apparent in her storytelling. It is vivid and beautiful, without being overly descriptive. Shugri’s story is an amazing one, and one that is hard to imagine as someone who has lived an admittedly privileged life. It was amazing to read how she has lived through so many different situations and lifestyles and pushed forward with such strength and perseverance.

I tend to have a hard time with memoirs because the true stories of people’s lives don’t follow the same structure of the plot in a fictional story. They don’t lead to a climax and then have a satisfying ending but are rather a bunch of stories that work together to explain a person’s life and sometimes their personality. That’s the case in this one. It is a bunch of different stories of the author’s life as a nomad in conjuncture with her life in America. Each chapter almost read like a scrapbook, different stories placed together that all related to the overall topic of the chapter but didn’t always feel like they connected to each other. It is written well and the stories are all very interesting to read about, my only complaint is that that structure threw me off a bit at times. However, the book as a whole was beautiful, and is one I will definitely be recommending to memoir lovers!

Trigger/Content Warnings:
• mentions and brief descriptions of rape.
• mentions of poverty, murder, war.
• chapter 4 speaks in depth and graphically about female genital mutilation. I would recommend skipping the entire chapter if this may be triggering

Shugri tackles difficult subjects with honesty and a tone unique to one who has occupied two such opposite worlds. She discusses growing up in a society that places such pride on virginity yet has young girls consistently threatened by rape. The most moving transition for me was her views on female genital mutilation (FGM). As a child she underwent the traumatic mutilation but at time it was a great honor for her. After fleeing the civil war, moving to North America, and having a daughter of her own, she explains how her thoughts shifted. She doesn’t shy away from explaining the honor she once felt in FGM, but now views her survival following this trauma as a breaking of chains for her daughters and other women that will follow.
Shugri’s strength is beautiful. She underwent so much trauma with a consistent will to survive, to do better, and be better than what she witnessed. Though her memoir is filled with trials, it’s also infused with love, humor, and happy memories. It was a difficult read at times, but such an eye-opening experience into growing up in a country I know so little about.
I highly recommend this for anyone interested in memoirs, cross-cultural experiences, and women in the middle east. Even if memoirs are not your usual read, I still urge you to pick this up. Shugri writes with such honesty, humor, and personality, that it did not feel like the slog that nonfiction can occasionally be.

The Last Nomad by Shugri Said Salh is an enlightening memoir about Shugri’s nomadic life and is told in a style that replicates the Somali way of oral storytelling. It is fascinating and opens up a door into a lifestyle and culture that isn’t often featured in our mainstream literature.

This book is part stunning show at the resilience of the nomadic women and part startling revelation of the life that Shugri experienced. There’s many tense or heavy moments but they are crucial to the story at large. There’s a lot of learnable moments and topics in this book.

Although I was fascinated by the author’s life, I might not be in the right headspace for a novel such as this one right now. The jarring storytelling style didn’t fully pull me in as much as I would have liked. That isn’t to say that it’s not a gorgeous book; it very much is. I think this will rank highly for many people and I think I will appreciate it even more on a reread at a time I’m able to enjoy reading about heavier subjects!

Thanks to Algonquin books for the review copy and for inviting me on this book tour!

“An old African proverb says, When an elder dies, a library is burned.”

This is a beautifully written memoir and I would highly recommend it if you enjoy memoirs, learning about new cultures , or even just a good story

In the first 20 or so years of her life, Shugri Said Salh goes from loved daughter and granddaughter, to an abused daughter and later sister; from enjoying the nomadic life in the Somalian dessert, to growing up in a orphanage in Mogadishu, to a refuge in Kenya and then Canada . All through her ordeals, her family is her strength and at times the cause of her suffering - but there are no heroes or villains - just a family doing the best they can given the circumstances in which they find themselves ( whether that be culturally, socio economic, politically influenced etc.)

Ms Salh has a very large extended family; I have to say it was hard keeping track of all the brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles. I wish there had been a family tree!

There is one chapter in the book that is primarily about FGM - female genital mutilation . I realize this is a very important chapter in the book, but for me it was very difficult to read . This topic generally just breaks my heart and that the author and her sisters experience had me in tears . Do not let his deter you from reading the story - I actually think it’s really important to learn more about this topic.

Salh’s memories are saturated with love for land and people and family.

She speaks with love and acceptance of the places and peoples that she belongs to. She, and her story as she tells it, spill over with a quiet self-acceptance, love for ancestral skills and lifestyles, and an unyielding ability to be resilient, to find delight, and I found it incredibly inspiring. And still, she is able to acknowledge hardship, challenges, and pivotal moments in her understanding.

This is a great read for book clubs, for anyone who feels like they have lived in several different worlds, for those who want to keep and share their own ancestral history, and for everyone who has wondered what it would be like to live a nomadic life.

I’m impressed, so inspired, and grateful Salh acted on the feeling to write down her stories, to keep, preserve, and detail her ancestral history and hope she writes more. Her voice is lush and wonderful with a sense of inner contentment and gratitude that I long to be near and feel more often in my reading and in my own life.

The memoirs I appreciate the most are those that open my eyes to a different culture or a lifestyle I will never experience. In 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐍𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐝, Shugri Said Salh writes of her early nomadic life in the desert of Somalia.

She and her siblings were forced to flee their homeland as refugees due to the dangers of civil war. Her journey was once again nomadic in nature, traversing through many countries, at times homeless, but ultimately she would marry, start a family and graduate nursing school with honors.

Shugri Said Salh writes with poetic beauty, but it is raw and honest. She tells of the trauma she faced as a child - the rite of passage in female circumcision that she endured, the misogynistic standards her society upheld, and the fear of war. While I did enjoy the descriptions of goat herding and life out in the desert, her resilience and determination are what I admired the most. The world comes together by understanding each other's stories, and 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐍𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐝 is a story that needs to be heard.

Thank you to @algonquinbooks and @shugrisalh for an invitation to this tour and a gifted copy.

“I am the last nomad. My ancestors traveled the East African desert in search of grazing land for their livestock, and the most precious resource of all—water. When they exhausted the land and the clouds disappeared from the horizon, their accumulated ancestral knowledge told them where to move next to find greener pastures. They loaded their huts and belongings onto their most obedient camels and herded their livestock to a new home.”

Shugri Said Salh's memoir details the time from when she was six years old and her mother sent her to live with her Ayeeyo (Grandmother), a nomad living in the dessert. She left behind live in the city, her siblings, her mother, her father and his many wives. Shugri Said Salih wrote "This is the legacy of my ancestors that I want to leave behind me for my children - and my readers."

By leaving them behind she became the last nomad of her family. The dessert was many things for her - a place to play, a place of hunger, a place of drought, a place of extreme beauty, a place of freedom, a place full of predators, a place of community and a place which held the history of her ancestors. History is a very important thing to those living in Somali. Children can recite the names of their forefathers all the way back to the original four clans.

"When an elder dies, a library is burned." - An African Proverb.

It is no wonder that the author wanted to tell her history. She begins her chapters with a Somali proverb. She also shares nomadic traditions including a procedure called gudniin -female circumcision. It is a normal part of Somali culture and that young girls look forward to this as they want to be seen as "clean" and not "dirty."

Shugri Said Salh does move back to the city to be with her family leaving her beloved Ayeeyo behind. She shares of her mother's death, her pain of not having a photograph of her, of being forced to flee when there is a civil war. She had to flee to Kenya, Canada and finally to the United States. She faced hardships, was homeless, was introduced new lands with modern devices which were foreign to her.

While reading this memoir, I couldn't help but admire and be impressed by her resiliency. She was brave in ways many of us never have to be. While reading this memoir, I couldn't help but think could I have lived through this? How did she survive? From the moment she was born, she was taught and conditioned for a nomadic life. Her Ayeeyo and the dessert were her teachers. She bravely faced her female circumcision, she fought back when under attack, and she endured and preserved. She is a survivor.

This memoir not only paints a picture of the author's life but gives readers a glimpse into another culture. Readers will learn about Somali tradition, customs and survival. I felt for her, I cheered for her, and I enjoyed her story. I admired her strength and courage. This is a moving, well written and captivating memoir.

I was moved by her words about her Ayeeyo (grandmother) "She commanded the dessert with authority, and I watched her every move with deep admiration. My Ayeeyo was my hero, who left me with the belief that I am enough."

Powerful, moving, informative and gripping!

Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Salh has written a memoir which educates and informs = and which will linger in your mind long after you've turned the last page. She has been a nomad all her life, both literally and metaphorically. Was the happiest time of her life living in the desert with her grandmother? Or was it in Mogisdishu before the family was forced to flee? Or now? It's hard to tell but that doesn't matter. This is an unflinching look at cultural issues such as female circumcision as well as abuse and misogyny. She also details the rise of and impact of religious extremism in Somalia. Life in Canada was baffling at first as she learned to navigate a society and country with conditions so different from what she knew. Memoirs are often hard to review because it feels as though you are judging the author or the author's life choices but that's not the case here. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An impressive read from an amazingly resilient woman.

This book was incredible. Inspiring and heartbreaking in the best possible way. Shugri’s story was so wild to read. The things she went through in her life is amazing. Her story is a true portrait of resilience.

"I am the last nomad. My ancestors traveled the East African desert in search of grazing land for their livestock, and the most precious resource of all--water."

Publishing on August 3, 2021, The Last Nomad is one woman's story, but also the story of a disappearing people. Building on the oral tradition passed down by her grandmother, Shugri Said Salh gives the reader an unflinching, poignant, and sometimes funny look at the daily life and various cultural traditions of the Somalian nomadic people, and how she and her family survived numerous tragedies, including the civil war that broke out in 1991. Her writing evokes both the beauty and brutality of her early life.

THE LAST NOMAD: Coming of Age in the Somali Desert, by Shugri Said Salh tells the story of her upbringing: life with her nomadic grandmother, her abusive father, her time in a foreign-run orphanage, her somewhat privileged life with her sister in the capital of Mogadishu, her exodus when the war came and her emigration to Canada.

I've read very few books by Somali writers and adore memoir, so I was thrilled to receive an advanced review copy.

I immediately identified with Salh in the prologue, when she described her desire to share her story as a way to create understanding and connection between humans.

Throughout, the author relates her own story to her context: clan structures, the nomads' resilience in a desperately harsh environment, their oral poetry and storytelling traditions, the role of girls and women in society, including the age-old practice of female circumcision and her own experience of it.

The author's writing style is light and amicable, as she tosses in picaresque asides. (Like how not to confuse the Somali word orgi with the English orgy. :)

As the book wore on, I found I wanted to know more about a war that displaced millions and devastated a country, as well as the author's unique insights and personal truths. I would have felt more satisfied if the author had gone much deeper in these areas.

That said, the author herself offered the key to experiencing this book when she described how even storytelling in her culture is nomadic: it offer a trickle and not a watershed.

This is exactly what The Last Nomad delivered, and knowing this was a deliberate style of storytelling, I came to appreciate it more fully.