Saida Hagi-Dirie Herzi

Saida Hagi-Dirie Herzi (born ) is a Somali feminist writer. Her English-language short stories, which use semi-autobiographical narratives and thinly veiled allegories to discuss social issues in her native Somalia, have been widely anthologized.

Early life and education Saida Hagi-Dirie Herzi was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, in the 1950s.

As a child she was subjected to female genital mutilation. The practice is near-universal in Somalia but has been widely criticized internationally. Herzi would later critically revisit the experience in her writing.

Herzi attended King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in English literature. She later obtained a master's degree from the American University in Cairo.

Her first published story, "Against the Pleasure Principle", was initially printed in 1990 in the journal of the Index on Censorship, as there was concern that the brutal depiction of female genital mutilation in the story would be censored. The story contains elements of autobiography, as Herzi herself was subject to the procedure.

In 1992, Herzi's story "Government by Magic Spell" was included in The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Stories (edited by Chinua Achebe and C. L. Innes). The story was later chosen to be broadcast as part of BBC Radio's Human Cradle series in 2012.