Awl was born in 1937 in the town of
Las Khorey in North eastern
Somalia. In his youth, he obtained a scholarship to study
aeronautical and
automobile engineering in
London in the United Kingdom (1959–62). Upon graduation, he moved to Somalia and worked with the
police force and the National Transport Agency in
Mogadishu. The vivid descriptions of Somalia's scenery and fauna in Awl's literary corpus, as well as the inclusion of traditional Somali poetry, make it stand out in particular. He also has the distinction of being the first Somali novelist to write in the nascent
Latin script for the
Somali language after its formalization in 1972. Awl was a member of the royal family of the Warsangali clan. Reportedly because of his membership in the
Darod clan family, Awl, along with three of his children, was killed in 1991, at the height of the civil unrest that gripped the town of
Beledweyne in the
Hiiraan region. He is survived by his wife and one son, Dahir Farah. ==Bibliography==