Launch of Somali Week Festival 2026

Her work explores identity, belonging, and social change, with a focus on Black, Muslim, and refugee communities. She has written, produced, and directed several short films, including Dreamers, Not For Us, Unqualified, and The Houseguest, and is currently developing her debut feature film, Lifeline. Grounded in community-centred storytelling, her work amplifies voices often underrepresented in mainstream media. Beyond filmmaking, Ilhan leads initiatives that connect creatives, entrepreneurs, and community leaders across North America. She is the founder of The Somali Link Up, a network supporting Somali creatives and changemakers.

Her writing and recipes are published in The New York Times, where she is a regular contributor, and she has bylines in Vogue, Eater, TASTE and The LA Times, amongst many others. Her popular Somali culinary pop-up Milk & Myrrh has routinely sold out in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York and she has been featured in The Cut, Vogue, NPR, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Her highly critically acclaimed debut cookbook SOOMAALIYA is out now. Named one of Cherry Bombe's 'Future of Food 50', she is dedicated to the preservation of Somali culinary traditions.

She discovered her love for comedy in secondary school, where she developed a natural talent for making people laugh through her stories and witty observations. She is the writer and star of the theatre production Dugsi Dayz.

She holds a PhD from the University of Naples, L'Orientale. She is the author of three novels, Madre piccola (2007) Il comandante del fiume (2014) and La stazioni della luna (2021). Her first two novels were published in English translation as Little Mother (2011) and Commander of the River (2023) by Indiana University Press as part of the Global African Voices Series. She is also the author of the poetry collection La danza dell'orice (Juxta Press, 2020) and the collection of short stories Le ceneri della fenice (Hopefulmonster, 2022). Ubah will be launching her recently translated book Commander of the River.

Under the founders’ creative direction, Daily Paper has become known for blending African heritage with contemporary street culture, building a distinctive visual language that has earned the brand international recognition over the past decade. The label's growth from an independent blog into a global fashion name has made Suleiman part of a generation of designers reshaping how diasporic identity is expressed within contemporary fashion.