Sultan Somjee
- Ethnographer; Historian; Author etc
Sultan Somjee is an ethnographer and the great-grandson of Rajan Nanji. He has written two historical novels, Bead Bai (2012) and Home Between Crossings (2016), about migrations and settlements of Ismaili Khojas in East Africa. He gathers stories from oral traditions and tangible culture of the community such as the photo album, bandhani (bridal silk shawl), siri (diamond-studded nose button) and other items of material culture.
Sultan Somjee recorded some of the stories in the novels from two community exhibitions that he curated. The first was ‘Coming of the Satpanthis to Africa (Ma aging gracefully)’ in 1994 at the Aga Khan Complex, Parklands, Nairobi when he was with the Aga Social Welfare Board. It was a participatory exhibition with the Seniors and Seniors Chairperson Gulshan Bai Fazal. The second was ‘The Asian African Heritage Exhibition’ that ran for five years (2000 -2005), at the Nairobi National Museum while he was the Head of Ethnography at the National Museums of Kenya.
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