My name is Mary Halfper. I'm Africa Editor for BBC World Service News.

I've been coming to Somalia, reporting and writing about it for 25 years.

In this programme, I want to show you a side to the place, few outside the Somali community know about,

through the life and work of its most revered and important poet, Hadrawi, the Somali Shakespeare.

Anyone who tries to rob you of your rights, whether by brazen theory or clandestine kleptocracy,

by hideous trickery or with light fingers in the light of day, they can't grasp how well-founded freedom is.

Both the moon and its full clarity, which will never dim. I carry its fire.

No matter how depleted I sing, history will display in the nation's records the inevitable outcome of the role that I play.

I can't very honestly say there is nobody like him.

He was one of the people who had the courage to speak out against communism and oppression and injustice.

And for a long time being the voice of the foistless, Hadrawi is not a person. Hadrawi is a nation.

In Hargesa, the capital of Somali land, everyone knows the territory is most famous, most loved, poet, playwright and songwriter.

Here they call him their Shakespeare. His work over the last 50 years has given voice to the Somali people's desire for love, freedom, justice and peace.

But I'm in a place you may never have heard of, and I've come to meet a poet you may never have heard of either.

Because Somali land, which declared itself independent in 1991, is often lumped together with Somalia, which has been torn apart by continuous violence and instability for the past 30 years.

In English man, if they say they never have Shakespeare, I don't think it's possible they may say I never have Shakespeare.

Same thing any Somali person, they heard Hadrawi, one way or another.

So that's why Hadrawi is inspiration, love, war, tragedy, everything that you read about Shakespeare, you will find in Hadrawi as well.

Imagine you could meet Homer or Milton, someone whose melodic ability was metrical skill, whose moral vision was just on an epic scale.

That's what meeting Hadrawi is like.

Our nation is renowned for its honesty, for humility woven from a silicon thread, our people would harm no one, fearing Allah, their feelings are slow to stir, still, they are not so easily duped.

Those immersed in misrule, pretending to stand tall while swimming in its depths, weaving their unseen nets, our people don't rush to blame, nor to lash out at them, but they keep an excellent account of such misdeeds and store it well.

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