Death of the poet Hadraawi, nicknamed “the Somali Shakespeare”
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The author had gone into exile in Ethiopia, then in the United Kingdom, before returning to settle in Somaliland. Sick for several years, he died at the age of 79.
One of the most famous Somali poets, Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, known as Hadraawi and nicknamed the “Somali Shakespeare”, died on Thursday August 18 in the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland, where he lived. Aged 79, this highly respected author in Somali society, where poetry is a centuries-old tradition, had suffered from health problems for seven years.
Hadraawi, who composed dozens of songs and epics in verse, notably spent five years in prison between 1973 and 1978 under the military dictatorship of Siad Barre, for having criticized the regime through his writings. After his release, he went into exile in Ethiopia, then in the United Kingdom before finally settling in Somaliland, where he was from.
“It’s shocking and it’s a great loss, I want to inform Somali speaking people everywhere and around the world of the death of the poet Hadraawi. We must pray for him now,” Somaliland President Muse Bihi told a press conference in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland. “I send my condolences to the people of Somaliland and to all Somali speaking people everywhere. We will prepare for his burial,” he added.
The President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamoudalso hailed in a press release “one of the Somali intellectuals who endeavored to contribute to the awareness of the Somali people and their literature”. Hadraawi had no children. His wife died in March 2022 in Burao, his birthplace where the couple lived.
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