Don’t Tell Me You’re Afraid by Giuseppe Catozzella: book review

Don’t Tell Me You’re Afraid (2014, English version 2016) is based on the true story of Samia Omar, a Somali athlete. The narrator is Samia, as she tells her story of her life and ambitions.

Samia Omar is 8 years old, growing up in war-time Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1999, when she won her first race. She can run like the wind, beating children older than her.

Her inspiration was fellow Somalian Mo Farah. Mo Farah was living in England, and that’s where Ali, her coach, wanted to be. It was all he could think about, as well as coaching Samia. But the journey to Europe, from Somalia to the Mediterranean, and across the sea to Italy or Greece, was dangerous – as a refugee. But Ali’s journey is unknown – Samia hopes he made it.

For Samia, at 14 years of age, she has to decide – to stay and train alone without Ali or to leave with thousands of other Somalis and risk the danger. The words of her father ring in her ear: ‘You’re a little warrior running for freedom, whose efforts alone will redeem an entire people.’

In 2007, even her sister Hodan, older by five years, had taken the risk, travelling to Tripoli, boarding an old vessel, and landing in Malta. On her own, and quitting school, Samia is selected to represent Somalia in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and finishes last in her heat – she is the shortest, the thinnest, and the youngest. But she already dreams of competing at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

If the road to Beijing was hard, the road to London was harder. In 2011, at the age of 20, Samia takes the ultimate risk – without papers, without a passport – she takes the migrant journey to Europe alone, putting her life in the hands of human traffickers. She is headed for London, but the dangerous journey brings setback after setback. Will she reach London in time for the Olympic Games – or will she be duped by her traffickers?

Simply told, but with a complexity of feelings, this is the story of a young talented girl, reaching for her ambitions, as those she loves abandon her for their own dreams. It is the compelling true story of Samia Omar.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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