The Last Nomad: Coming of Age in the Somali Desert

Shugri Said Salh

Aug 2021 · Sold by Algonquin Books

About this ebook

A remarkable and inspiring true story that "stuns with raw beauty" about one woman's resilience, her courageous journey to America, and her family's lost way of life.

Finalist for the 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nonfiction Award
Winner of the 2022 Gold Nautilus Award, Multicultural & Indigenous Category

Born in Somalia, a spare daughter in a large family, Shugri Said Salh was sent at age six to live with her nomadic grandmother in the desert. The last of her family to learn this once-common way of life, Salh found herself chasing warthogs, climbing termite hills, herding goats, and moving constantly in search of water and grazing lands with her nomadic family. For Salh, though the desert was a harsh place threatened by drought, predators, and enemy clans, it also held beauty, innovation, centuries of tradition, and a way for a young Sufi girl to learn courage and independence from a fearless group of relatives. Salh grew to love the freedom of roaming with her animals and the powerful feeling of community found in nomadic rituals and the oral storytelling of her ancestors.

As she came of age, though, both she and her beloved Somalia were forced to confront change, violence, and instability. Salh writes with engaging frankness and a fierce feminism of trying to break free of the patriarchal beliefs of her culture, of her forced female genital mutilation, of the loss of her mother, and of her growing need for independence. Taken from the desert by her strict father and then displaced along with millions of others by the Somali Civil War, Salh fled first to a refugee camp on the Kenyan border and ultimately to North America to learn yet another way of life.

Readers will fall in love with Salh on the page as she tells her inspiring story about leaving Africa, learning English, finding love, and embracing a new horizon for herself and her family. Honest and tender, The Last Nomad is a riveting coming-of-age story of resilience, survival, and the shifting definitions of home.

Ratings and reviews

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!

About the author

Shugri Said Salh was born in the Somali desert. In 1992, she immigrated to North America after civil war broke out in her home country. She attended nursing school at Pacific Union College and graduated with honors. Although this is her first book, Salh has been storytelling since she could talk. From her grandmother and the nomadic community in which she was raised, she heard stories and learned of their power to entertain, teach, and transform. When she isn't writing or telling stories, she works as an infusion nurse. She lives in Sonoma County with her husband and three children.