Ali Ahmida to publish book on Libyan genocide this August

“Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History” this original research on the forgotten Libyan genocide, specifically recovers the hidden history of the fascist Italian concentration camps (1929 – 1934) through the oral testimonies of Libyan survivors. This book links the Libyan genocide through cross-cultural and comparative readings to the colonial roots of the Holocaust and genocide studies.

Based on the survivors’ testimonies, which took over ten years of fieldwork and research to document, this new and original history of the genocide is a key resource for readers interested in genocide and holocaust studies, colonial and post-colonial studies and African and Middle Eastern studies.

Professor Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University and the world’s leading scholar on Colonial genocide, endorsed the Ahmida’s book as “Based on oral, archival and published documentation, Ali Ahmida provides a damning condemnation of Italian colonialism in Libya and of the scholarship that so far has overlooked the scope and significance of the genocidal violence which enabled it. A genuine contribution to the literature on Libya, on colonialism and on studies of genocide.”

James C. Scott, Ph.D., Sterling Professor of political science and anthropology at Yale University, called the Ahmida’s book a “masterpiece of oral history” that “recaptures the full texture of a great but little known atrocity. The prose and the poetry of folk memory as well as the crosscurrents of regional variation are gripping and unforgettable. A people’s suffering have been truly honored here.”