We regret the passing, on April 11, 2024, of the distinguished Romanian author and critic Dan Cristea, who served as the editor in chief of the Luceafărul de Dimineață cultural monthly. In addition to being an alum of the 1985 Fall Residency, Cristea received his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa.
Aden Muhumed Ahmed
It was in the year 1997 when my father took me to Somalia to visit our grandfather.
As we stayed there, I and my nephew went to fetch water from a well. Soon after we reached it my nephew threw his shoe into the well. He looked at it and tried to get it back but he couldn’t. Thoughts engulfed him and he feared from his parents that if they find him shoeless they would torture him. As I was looking at him he fell or dumped himself into the well and I remained there alone. I also started thinking about him. If his parents missed him they would accuse me of throwing their son into the well. Time came and went, now I also put on my shoes and prepared myself to also dump myself into the well, but with good luck the well water overwhelmed the edge. Then the water threw the boy up and returned back and again he was thrown. Now some people went in the well and saved the boy.
In short when I remember the day I feel like strangling myself and I knew that Somalis never knew the wisdom which says “Wait before you criticize” but only knew the hit and run straying bullets.
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