# America Made Me a Black Man (2022) by Boyah J. Farah: a Somali refugee's memoir of race in the United States

> Boyah J. Farah's America Made Me a Black Man (2022): his journey from Somalia through Kenya to Boston, what the memoir describes about race in America, and its very mixed reviews.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/books/america-made-me-a-black-man-farah/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## The book

**America Made Me a Black Man: A Memoir** is the first book by **Boyah J. Farah**. Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, published it in the United States in September 2022, and Scribner published a British edition in May 2023 ([Kirkus Reviews](https://kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/boyah-j-farah/america-made-me-a-black-man); [Simon & Schuster UK](https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/America-Made-Me-a-Black-Man/Boyah-J-Farah/9781398504844)). It was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and named one of NPR's best books of 2022 ([Harper](https://www.harperlibrarybookclub.com/9780063073357/america-made-me-a-black-man)).

## His journey

Farah spent his early childhood in Somalia, where he remembers feeling free. When war came, his mother walked her children to a refugee camp in Kenya, and from there the family moved to a suburb outside Boston ([MPR News](https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2022/09/30/boyah-j-farah-on-how-america-made-him-a-black-man)). According to Publishers Weekly he was about fifteen when he arrived, in the early 1990s, and came with a strong love for America ([Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780063073357)). He arrived without a birth certificate and without knowing his birthday for certain, but carrying a detailed family history in his head ([Kirkus Reviews](https://kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/boyah-j-farah/america-made-me-a-black-man)). See [Somalis leave, 1988 to 1991](/en/diaspora/somalis-leave-1988-1991/), [Refugee camps](/en/diaspora/refugee-camps/) and [Somalis in the United States](/en/diaspora/united-states/).

## What it describes

The memoir's argument is in its title: Farah writes that he did not understand what it meant to be a Black man until he became an American ([MPR News](https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2022/09/30/boyah-j-farah-on-how-america-made-him-a-black-man)). He describes a high school guidance counsellor who steered him towards manual work despite his grades, while his brother was told to learn to drive a truck and his sister to become a mother. He went to college anyway, then spent more than ten years in a clerical job, watching colleagues he saw as less qualified promoted above him. After he called a supervisor racist he was suspended and then dismissed, and a legal settlement followed. He also describes encounters with police, a traffic stop and a false complaint, and an officer who suggested sending his younger brother back to Somalia ([Kirkus Reviews](https://kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/boyah-j-farah/america-made-me-a-black-man); [Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780063073357)).

## How it was received

Reviews were divided. Kirkus Reviews called it "an eye-opening, upsetting catalog of indignities that no one should have to suffer in a supposedly free country" ([Kirkus Reviews](https://kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/boyah-j-farah/america-made-me-a-black-man)). Publishers Weekly called it a "vitriolic memoir", found the prose at times overblown, and noted that the author uses composite characters, compressed timelines and reconstructed dialogue; it concluded that the book was "less a realistic account of racial divisions than a vivid portrait of the paranoia they inspire" ([Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780063073357)). Farah discussed the book on Minnesota Public Radio in 2022, where he spoke of both loving and being frustrated by his adopted country ([MPR News](https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2022/09/30/boyah-j-farah-on-how-america-made-him-a-black-man)).

## Where to read it

It is available in hardback, paperback, ebook and audiobook. Other memoirs of Somali lives in the diaspora on this site include [This Is What America Looks Like](/en/books/this-is-what-america-looks-like-omar/) by [Ilhan Omar](/en/people/ilhan-omar/) and [A Man of Good Hope](/en/books/a-man-of-good-hope-steinberg/) by Jonny Steinberg.

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