An essay on Fairytales for lost children by Diriye osman

Alicia Sofia Rodrigues Baessa                Emma Depledge

alicia.rodrigues@unine.ch         An introduction to literature in English

14.11.2024

An essay on Fairytales for Lost Children: a reflection on representation and migration

In the short story “Fairytales For Lost Children” by Diriye Osman, we are presented to the reality of a Somalian refugee, in Kenya, named Xirsi. The protagonist faces many personal identity hardships due to his status of refugee and his sexuality, as the author highlights those issues by narrating Xirsi’s life. As both a refugee and a gay black man, Xirsi endures struggles with isolation, discrimination, intensified by conservative Somali cultural expectations and his inability to speak the local language. In this essay, I will discuss the means employed by the author to explore the themes of representation through the concepts of blackness and social orientation, and also the matter of migration.

        In this short story, there is a remarkable character who is Miss Mumbi, Xirsi’s teacher. Thanks to this character, Diriye Osman included hypodiegetic narratives as a tool to explore one of the aspects of identity I want to analyse: Blackness. As said before, the story takes place in Kenya when the country was under British colonial rule. Therefore, the characters had to speak English at school, which was a struggle for Xirsi, as he didn’t know the language, and learn things that revolved around the United Kingdom, but Miss Mumbi was against this European enforceability. To counter it, Miss Mumbi narrated Black-centered versions of Eurocentric tales; Rapunzel became Rehema, a woman with a gigantic afro, and Snow White became Kohl Black, a voluptuous black woman. This teacher also taught the ABC’s differently:

Whilst other pre-schoolers were learning that ‘A’ was for ‘Apple’, ‘B’ for ‘Ball’, ‘C’ for ‘Cat’, we were grappling with ‘A’ is for ‘Ameru’, ‘B’ for ‘Bukushi’, ‘C’ for ‘Chonyi’. (Course Reader p.24)

Miss Mumbi's actions ultimately seek to decolonise children's thinking and promote representation and inclusiveness in their education. In spite of her dedication, she finally gets fired, because it is a sign of protest against the government at that time.

        The relevance of Miss Mumbi's stories, but above all of literature in general, brings to light another crucial aspect of identity directly linked to our protagonist: sexual orientation. Although Miss Mumbi’s storytelling has an inclusive approach, it only regards ethnic and cultural identity, it eventually lacks the sexual orientation aspect that Xirsi search for within his own imagination. Being gay profoundly impacts his self-acceptance, as he knows that being homosexual is fundamentally prohibited in his religion (he comes from a Muslim family) and consequently in his Somalian culture. This leads to his constant daydreaming of a happy ending fairytale where he is in a homosexual committed relationship, as portrayed in the following extract:

The road to Happily Ever After, however, was paved by political barbed wire. […] The object of my affection was a boy and I wasn’t allowed to love a boy. But I was allowed to dream. And in my dreams Ivar became my prince[.] (p.25)

 Xirsi’s reality reflects the reversed expectations that fairytales usually have, which is the prince saves the princess. Here the stock plot and characters are reversed: a boy meets a boy and falls in love with him, later on will try to save him. He refers to literature as his own religion, as if it was his haven of peace. However, at the end of the short story he realises that reality isn't fiction, like Miss Mumbi's stories, or the ones he reads in the bookshop, or the daydreams he has. Reality hits him when Ivar (his schoolmate but also crush) fell off the tree, highlighting the reversed stock plot — as the boy tries to save the other boy, he falls and die:

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