I do not often read books that make me feel slightly embarrassed about how little I know. But What We’re Told Not to Talk About (But We’re Going to Anyway) by Nimko Ali did exactly that – and I am grateful for it.
Nimko Ali is a Somali-British activist and one of the most prominent voices campaigning to end female genital mutilation (FGM). This book is part memoir, part manifesto, and entirely honest. She writes about her own experience of FGM as a child, about the silence and shame that surrounds it, and about what it has taken – personally and politically – to keep speaking about it anyway.
The title says it all, really. There are things we do not talk about – in families, in communities, in public life – because they are uncomfortable, because they challenge the way things are, because speaking up has a cost. Nimko Ali pays that cost again and again, and she does it with warmth, humour, and an absolute refusal to be quiet.
What struck me most was the tone. I expected something more clinical or angry – and while there is righteous anger here, there is also a lot of joy and personality. Ali is funny. She is self-aware. She writes about her community with both love and clear-eyed criticism. And she insists throughout that this is not a problem confined to one culture or one religion – the silencing of women’s bodies, women’s pain, women’s voices is everywhere.
This is not an easy read in the sense that it is comfortable – it is not meant to be. But it is readable, it is human, and it is important. I finished it in two days and I have been thinking about it ever since.
Who should read it: Everyone, honestly. But especially people who want to understand the intersection of culture, politics, and women’s rights through one woman’s deeply personal story.
★★★★★
