Ciao Asmara

(Paperback)

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Description

Asmara is the capital of Eritrea - a surreally Italian city at the centre of an ex-Italian colony that has been at war with its neighbour Ethiopia (who claim sovereignty over Eritrea) for over ten years. Amidst broken palaces (built by the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie), nomadic desert encampments and war-torn towns, Hill found a god-fearing people remarkably resistant to everything fate has thrown at them. This book is a tribute to their resilience and will stand beside Philip Gouravitch's Rwandan book, WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW YOU WILL BE KILLED WITH YOUR FAMILIES, as a classic account of contemporary Africa.

Reviews

'The book is a love letter to the country he had to leave...The tone is low-key, but the story is anything but that: a brief and beautiful moment of calm in between storms' Sunday Times 'Hill is a great and passionate storyteller, and his account is both readable and important' Independent on Sunday 'Exquisite...CIAO ASMARA tells of hope deferred...deft, poignant... His valediction has all the bittersweet anger and gratitude of Orwell's escape from Barcelona' Independent

Author Bio

Justin Hill taught in Eritrea for two years and this book is the first about the country to appear for a non- academic audience.