Life in Somalia before the civil war was beautiful. When the war happened, I was 8 years old and at that stage of understanding the world in a different way.

I talk a lot about the men in my family because my mother died when I was little, and my grandmother died when my aunts were little, so we didn't have those kinds of heads of household. But all the members of our household who were female were sort of living as equal and as wise as the male figures in our family.

My family called me the 'why kid' growing up. I always needed to know why something is happening, why I had to do something, why whatever.

Ilhan Omar Quotes