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Number 66 on the 2025 list
Hawa Hassan is an author and food entrepreneur from Somalia, named to the AFN 100 in 2025 for publishing Setting a Place for Us, recipes from eight countries hit by war.
In 2025 Hawa Hassan published "Setting a Place for Us", recipes and stories of displacement and community from eight countries hit by war, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Each chapter opens with an essay on how conflict shaped a country's food. The book was shortlisted at the 2025 Gourmand Awards. Born in Somalia, she spent years displaced, including in a Kenyan refugee camp, before resettling in the United States.