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Diriye Osman
Goodreads Author
Born
in Mogadishu, Somalia, Somalia
Website
Twitter
Genre
Influences
Alison Bechdel, Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, Nuruddin Farah, Alice Mu
...more
Member Since
February 2013
Popular Answered Questions
Diriye Osman
I get to do what I love most in the world. Sounds too much like cornball shizz? It's true though. I love writing and that's what compels me to keep going at it.
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Fairytales for Lost Children
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published
2013
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6 editions
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Speak My Language, and Other Stories: An Anthology of Gay Fiction
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published
2015
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5 editions
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The Butterfly Jungle
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published
2022
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2 editions
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Black and Gay in the UK: An Anthology
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published
2014
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2 editions
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Inviting Interruptions: Wonder Tales in the Twenty-First Century (The Donald Haase Series in Fairy-Tale Studies)
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Black Lives: A Nottingham Writers' Studio Anthology
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published
2021
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We Once Belonged to the Sea
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Fairytales for Lost Children by Osman, Diriye (September 1, 2013) Paperback
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Jungle Jim #20
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published
2013
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SCARF: Breathing Space
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Author's Note
Dear reader,
Five years ago I sat down to write my first short story. It was a 2500 word narrative loosely modelled on my own life. Although I had previously written two unpublished, structurally messy novels, this one piece of short fiction altered my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. This particular story was about a Somali teenager who had immigrated to the UK and although discouraged by th Read more of this blog post »
Five years ago I sat down to write my first short story. It was a 2500 word narrative loosely modelled on my own life. Although I had previously written two unpublished, structurally messy novels, this one piece of short fiction altered my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. This particular story was about a Somali teenager who had immigrated to the UK and although discouraged by th Read more of this blog post »
“The God of Imagination lived in fairytales. And the best fairytales made you fall in love. It was while flicking through "Sleeping Beauty" that I met my first love, Ivar. He was a six-year-old bello ragazzo with blond hair and eyebrows. He had bomb-blue eyes and his two front teeth were missing.
The road to Happily Ever After, however, was paved with political barbed wire. Three things stood in my way.
1. The object of my affection didn't know he was the object of my affection.
2. The object of my affection preferred Action Man to Princess Aurora.
3. The object of my affection was a boy and I wasn't allowed to love a boy.”
― Fairytales for Lost Children
The road to Happily Ever After, however, was paved with political barbed wire. Three things stood in my way.
1. The object of my affection didn't know he was the object of my affection.
2. The object of my affection preferred Action Man to Princess Aurora.
3. The object of my affection was a boy and I wasn't allowed to love a boy.”
― Fairytales for Lost Children
“Daughter, I want you to form the most intense, loving relationship with yourself. Only then will you realize your capacity for kindness and emotional expansiveness. Daughter, after you have formed this relationship with yourself, I want you to love others with the openness and humility that you always embodied as a child. Daughter, I want you to forgive easily, laugh loudly and never allow yourself to become the invisible, silent woman that your mother was. Daughter, this is how we soften our hearts and become better human beings.”
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“Manic depression — or bipolar disorder — is like racing up to a clifftop before diving headfirst into a cavity. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the psychic equivalent of an extreme sport. The manic highs — that exhilarating rush to the top of the cliff — make you feel bionic in your hyper-energized capacity for generosity, sexiness and soulfulness. You feel like you have ingested stars and are now glowing from within. It’s unearned confidence-in-extremis — with an emphasis on the con, because you feel cheated once you inevitably crash into that cavity. I sometimes joke that mania is the worst kind of pyramid scheme, one that the bipolar individual doesn’t even know they’re building, only to find out, too late, that they’re also its biggest casualty.”
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Topics Mentioning This Author
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Around the World ...: 50 Books by African Men That Everyone Should Read | 2 | 122 | Jan 17, 2018 06:40PM | |
| Around the World ...: Tsipi all-time circumnavigation | 2 | 17 | Aug 30, 2021 06:11AM | |
| WACKY READING CHA...: POI SPELL CHALLENGE #3 | 161 | 59 | Sep 10, 2021 11:46AM | |
| On The Same Page : Ethiopia/Somalia | 7 | 8 | Dec 05, 2021 01:26PM | |
| WACKY READING CHA...: POI SPELL CHALLENGE #2 | 151 | 74 | Jun 19, 2022 10:08AM | |
| Read the World.: * Progress | 35 | 111 | Aug 14, 2022 08:20AM | |
The Seasonal Read...:
*
Completed Tasks: PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANY POST IN THIS THREAD
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3129 | 308 | Aug 31, 2022 09:00PM | |
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Reading with Style:
SU 22 Completed Tasks
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1071 | 75 | Aug 31, 2022 09:02PM | |
| WACKY READING CHA...: A-TEAM CHARACTER SPELL CHALLENGE | 86 | 60 | Nov 16, 2022 06:23PM |
“The God of Imagination lived in fairytales. And the best fairytales made you fall in love. It was while flicking through "Sleeping Beauty" that I met my first love, Ivar. He was a six-year-old bello ragazzo with blond hair and eyebrows. He had bomb-blue eyes and his two front teeth were missing.
The road to Happily Ever After, however, was paved with political barbed wire. Three things stood in my way.
1. The object of my affection didn't know he was the object of my affection.
2. The object of my affection preferred Action Man to Princess Aurora.
3. The object of my affection was a boy and I wasn't allowed to love a boy.”
― Fairytales for Lost Children
The road to Happily Ever After, however, was paved with political barbed wire. Three things stood in my way.
1. The object of my affection didn't know he was the object of my affection.
2. The object of my affection preferred Action Man to Princess Aurora.
3. The object of my affection was a boy and I wasn't allowed to love a boy.”
― Fairytales for Lost Children
“I've always loved being gay. Sure, Kenya was not exactly Queer Nation but my sexuality gave me joy. I was young, not so dumb and full of cum! There was no place for me in heaven but I was content munching devil's pie here on earth.”
― Fairytales for Lost Children
― Fairytales for Lost Children
“In those sticky summer nights in South London our windows stay open and our tiny apartment becomes our secret garden. The magic of the secret garden is that it exists in our imagination. There are no limits, no borderlines. The secret garden leads to the marigolds of Mogadishu and the magnolias of Kingston and when the heat turns us sticky and sweet and unwilling to be claimed by defeat we own the night. We own our bodies. We own our lives.”
― Fairytales for Lost Children
― Fairytales for Lost Children
“i have been told many times by family, friends, colleagues and strangers that I, a black African Muslim lesbian, am not included in this vision; that my dreams are a reflection of my upbringing in a decadent, amoral Western society that has corrupted who I really am. But who am I, really? Am I allowed to speak for myself or must my desires form the battleground for causes I do not care about? My answer to that is simple: ‘no one allows anyone anything.’ By rejecting that notion you discover that only you can give yourself permission on how to lead your life, naysayers be damned. In the end something gives way. The earth doesn’t move but something shifts. That shift is change and change is the layman’s lingo for that elusive state that lovers, dreamers, prophets and politicians call ‘freedom’.”
― Fairytales for Lost Children
― Fairytales for Lost Children
