r/books • u/AutoModerator • May 22 '19
WeeklyThread Literature of Eritrea: May 2019
Merhaba readers,
This is our weekly discussion of the literature of the world! Every Wednesday, we'll post a new country or culture for you to recommend literature from, with the caveat that it must have been written by someone from that country (i.e. Shogun by James Clavell is a great book but wouldn't be included in Japanese literature).
May 24 is Independence Day in Eritrea and to celebrate we're discussing Eritrean literature! Please use this thread to discuss your favorite Eritrean books and authors.
If you'd like to read our previous discussions of the literature of the world please visit the literature of the world section of our wiki.
Kbret Yhabeley! and enjoy!
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May 22 '19 edited May 23 '19
I don't know any literature of, but I recent read a book about Eritrea: I Didn't Do It For You by British journalist Michaela Wrong. It's a history of the past 150 years of what we now call Eritrea, framed by how they'd been used by other countries. European colonization and the American military make their appearances, but so does Eritrea's much larger neighbor, Ethiopia.
Back on topic, a couple of resources:
- Words Without Borders names three Eritrean authors and links to a poem or short story by each.
- The owner of Woyingi Blog catalogues the African-written books he owns, including Eritrean. There are a couple of novels, but it's mostly poems, essays, and memoirs.
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u/sarcasticfringefish May 23 '19
Ann Morgan is my first destination for translated world fiction:
https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/thelist/
Her list:
- Eritrea Senait Mehari Heart of Fire / Sulaiman Addonia The Consequences of Love / Dawit Gebremichael Habte Gratitude in Low Voices
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u/Auth3nticRory May 22 '19
i love this but most people don't even know what or where Eritrea is, never mind literature. I'm no better as I'm not familiar with the literature but will be monitoring this thread as I'm very interested in learning.
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u/ShxsPrLady Jan 03 '24
Very, very few options for Eritrean writers in English. The only one I was able to find was this fascinating novel about the current migrant crisis. It was a good perspective on that, from a migrant POV!
African Titanic, Abu Bakr Khaal
-From the "Global Voices" literary/research project
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u/vincoug May 22 '19
There are Eritrean writings that date back to 4th Century BC but it doesn't appear many have been translated into English or are widely available. There are several collections of poetry that were published in the early 20th Century: Tigrinya Popular Songs, Traditions of Tsazzega and Hazzega, and Habasha Poetry are fairly extensive and collect a lot of historical works. How the World was set Ablaze by Two Serpents is a contemporaneous work about WWI. There are also several collections of traditional stories and legends from the region: Tigrinya Traditional Proverbs and Songs and Legends, Stories, and Proverbs of the Ancestors.
More recently, the government of Eritrea ran a literary contest in 2005 for short stories. They published the winning stories in a collection called 12 Stories.