In the second episode of our new segment, The Written Word: Narrative Fiction & Nonfiction Storytelling, Safae Daoudi shares an extract from her historical fiction story, Diamond Traffic. Safae is a first-year student at Northwestern University in Qatar. She’s an avid reader and writer and her particular interests lie in historical fiction.

This is an excerpt from a novel Safae started when she was 14 years old. This story is inspired from the conflict around diamonds in West Africa. In the Western world, diamonds are often associated with elegance and beauty but it is often forgotten that these gems have fueled conflicts and brought civil unrest to parts of Africa. As Martin Ayafor, chairman of Sierra Leone, explains: “‘Diamond are forever ‘it is often said. But lives are not”.

We hope that you are enjoying this new segment. Listening to fiction and nonfiction short stories, poems, and personal essays can make us feel more connected, especially during this time of social distancing and self-isolation. If you’d like to contribute and share your work, please get in touch with us. You can email us at [email protected], dm us on Instagram and Twitter @yourtdq, or reach us via Facebook at TheDailyQ.