I never encountered a Somali character in books growing up – I had to change that

‘With hindsight, I wonder why I never stumbled across books with a diverse cast of characters, and feel saddened that I never stopped to question their absence.’ Photograph: Ayaan Mohamud

As a teenager in the British Somali diaspora, there were several things I heard repeated in connection with my own culture. In no particular order, there was: drought, Black Hawk Down, high foreheads, piracy, famine, the peculiarity of banana and rice, terrorism, and the “look at me, I am the Captain now” meme. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t always feel “cool” to be Somali.

When this feeling was coupled with the age-old question of who Somalis are, I found it hard to carve out my own sense of identity. Torn between the country’s physical location on the Horn of Africa, our ethnic homogeneity, and Somalia’s membership of the League of Arab States, it often felt as if I was being pulled in a million different directions. Was I Black, east African, Arab or simply … Somali? And how did my identity as a Muslim fit on to these racialised lines?