Launch of Somali Week Festival 2026

The Somali Week Festival launch returns to the British Library.

The Somali Week Festival, one of the biggest festivals outside the Horn of Africa, brings together artists, academics, influencers, and the community, to celebrate and engage with Somali cultural and creativity.

Join Kayd Somali Arts & Culture to launch the 18th Annual Somali Week Festival with an evening of conversation, reflection and performance, exploring the theme of the 2026 festival. Writers, artists and cultural practitioners Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, Sabrina Ali, Ifrah F. Ahmed and Hussein Suleiman come together to explore what it means to make a home – and create spaces that feel like home – through literature, theatre, food, research and fashion.

There will be a drinks reception from 18.00. This is an in-person only event in the British Library Pigott Theatre.

Her work explores identity, belonging, and social change, with a focus on Black, Muslim, and refugee communities. She has written, produced, and directed several short films, including Dreamers, Not For Us, Unqualified, and The Houseguest, and is currently developing her debut feature film, Lifeline. Grounded in community-centred storytelling, her work amplifies voices often underrepresented in mainstream media. Beyond filmmaking, Ilhan leads initiatives that connect creatives, entrepreneurs, and community leaders across North America. She is the founder of The Somali Link Up, a network supporting Somali creatives and changemakers.

Her writing and recipes are published in The New York Times, where she is a regular contributor, and she has bylines in Vogue, Eater, TASTE and The LA Times, amongst many others. Her popular Somali culinary pop-up Milk & Myrrh has routinely sold out in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York and she has been featured in The Cut, Vogue, NPR, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Her highly critically acclaimed debut cookbook SOOMAALIYA is out now. Named one of Cherry Bombe's 'Future of Food 50', she is dedicated to the preservation of Somali culinary traditions.

She discovered her love for comedy in secondary school, where she developed a natural talent for making people laugh through her stories and witty observations. She is the writer and star of the theatre production Dugsi Dayz.

She holds a PhD from the University of Naples, L'Orientale. She is the author of three novels, Madre piccola (2007) Il comandante del fiume (2014) and La stazioni della luna (2021). Her first two novels were published in English translation as Little Mother (2011) and Commander of the River (2023) by Indiana University Press as part of the Global African Voices Series. She is also the author of the poetry collection La danza dell'orice (Juxta Press, 2020) and the collection of short stories Le ceneri della fenice (Hopefulmonster, 2022). Ubah will be launching her recently translated book Commander of the River.

One of her notable writing accomplishments is co-editing the book Resistance: Voices of Exiled Writers, published by Palewell Press. Fatima's short story was one of the stories selected for the prose anthology, So Many Unavoidable Journeys: Tales of Displacement published in 2025. She has a BA in English Literature and an MA in Anthropology from SOAS, University of London.

Under the founders’ creative direction, Daily Paper has become known for blending African heritage with contemporary street culture, building a distinctive visual language that has earned the brand international recognition over the past decade. The label's growth from an independent blog into a global fashion name has made Suleiman part of a generation of designers reshaping how diasporic identity is expressed within contemporary fashion.