Books about Somalis: every era, from the Periplus to today

The short version

Books about Somalis are listed here in six periods, plus Somali authors' own books. Each has its own page with every book listed, what it covers, the language it was written in and where to read it.

Some books have their own pages:

• Ibn Battuta in Mogadishu and Zeila, 1331
• Futuh al-Habasha, the chronicle of Imam Ahmad's wars
• First Footsteps in East Africa (1856), Richard Burton
• A Modern History of the Somali, I. M. Lewis
• A Tree for Poverty (1954), the first Somali poems in English

How the writing changed over time

Outsiders on the coast (to 1500). The first accounts are short and written by people who came by sea. The Greek Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, from the 1st century CE, lists ports on the northern Somali coast and what they traded (Periplus, Wikipedia; Schoff translation, Internet Archive). Arab geographers such as al-Idrisi (1154) and Yaqut (1220s) described Zeila, Berbera and Mogadishu. Ibn Battuta's visit to Mogadishu in 1331 gives the fullest early picture of a Somali city (Gibb translation, Fordham). Chinese records describe the Berbera coast from the 9th century and Mogadishu and Brava after the Ming fleets of Zheng He in the 1410s and 1420s (Zhu Fan Zhi, Wikipedia; Fei Xin, Wikipedia).

War and sea power (1500 to 1884). The Futuh al-Habasha, written in Arabic by a member of the Adal army, records Imam Ahmad's wars of 1529 to 1543 and names Somali groups who fought in them (Futuh al-Habasha, Wikipedia). Portuguese writers recorded their attacks on Somali ports. From the 1840s, British, French and German travellers wrote longer accounts, the best known being Burton's (1856).

The colonial library (1884 to 1960). After partition, most books were written by people working for Britain or Italy: survey journals, war histories of the campaigns against the Dervishes, grammars of the Somali language, studies of customary law and Islam, and the first translations of Somali poetry.

Somali studies (from 1960). After independence, history and anthropology of the Somali grew into a field of its own, with the Somali Studies International Association launched in 1978 and its first congress held in Mogadishu in July 1980 (Somali studies, Wikipedia). Scholars debate the place of clan, class, Islam, the state and colonial rule in Somali history.

Somalis writing their own story. Somali scholars wrote in Arabic for centuries. Writing in Somali grew after the Latin script became official in 1972 (Somali written, 1972), and Somali authors in the diaspora now publish in many languages.

Where to find these books free

• Internet Archive (archive.org): scans of many old travel books, grammars and colonial reports, and lending copies of modern books.
• Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org): free text of out-of-copyright books, such as Burton's First Footsteps.
• HathiTrust (hathitrust.org): scans from US and European university libraries; books before 1929 are usually open to all.
• Gallica (gallica.bnf.fr): the French national library, for French works such as Guillain and Révoil.
• Open Library and WorldCat: catalogues that show which library near you holds a book.

Earlier lists of books on Somalia

The main printed bibliography in English is Somalia, volume 92 of the World Bibliographical Series, compiled by Mark W. DeLancey and others (Clio Press, 1988) (Cambridge, review in Africa). The US Library of Congress country study of Somalia (1992) also has a long reading list (Library of Congress Country Studies, via Mongabay).

Related pages

• Somali poetry
• Islam in Somalia
• Timeline, 1300s to 1960