To Asmara

This novel is set in the real life situation of the would-be independent province of Eritrea fighting a bitter battle for independence from Ethiopia at the end of the 1980s. Fictional characters and fictional events are entwined in a fascinating tale behind enemy lines with Eritrean guerilla fighters. The narrator is Darcy, a UK based Australian journalist with a mission to visit an Ethiopian fighter pilot being held as a prisoner of war held by the Eritreans after being shot down in his Soviet MiG-23 fighter. Darcy travels with a group of unlikely companions including the young French daughter of a film cameraman who is seeking her father, an aid worker whose motives are not evident at the start of the story, the widowed Lady Julia working for the cause of feminism and a number of Eritrean escorts. The journey brings them face-to-face with the worst atrocities of war including landmines, napalm bombs, fragmentation bombs and of course, machine gun fire. Nature throws up its own challenges too with swarms of locusts enveloping everything in their path. Overland travel is under the cover of dark as there is nowhere to hide in daylight. Schools, hospitals and dwellings are in caves and tunnels, leaving only the crops above ground, which provide a ready target for the enemy fire. The traveling group witnesses the lows of field hospitals served by surgeons with barely any anaesthetics and with only the basic tools of trade, to the highs of animated and passionate games of football between different guerilla units. Darcy's love life has been a failure with his Australian born Chinese wife having left him for an Aboriginal escaped convict some years earlier in the Northern Territory. Now a tall elegant lady by the name of Amna in their traveling party arouses the hints of romance in him. He is not confident to voice his feelings openly but does so under the influence of the local brew Sewa to his own embarrassment and to no avail. Amna has been badly tortured by the Ethiopians and is unable to reciprocate any such feelings. Our party approaches closer and closer to Asmara as the book reaches its climax. We hear of the taking of 18,000 Ethiopian prisoners of war at the battle of Afabet, one of the biggest battles since the Second World War. We are also told of the rebel strike at the Ethiopian air base at Asmara in which more than 40 MiGs were destroyed along with 3 Antonovs. The huge scale of such a little known war is made evident as we go along with the disparate group of individuals seeking their own private goals in the dangerous journey. It is a fascinating tale teaching us a modern day history lesson. The main criticism of the book is the writing style, which makes for difficult reading. Often sentences need to be re-read to gain comprehension and this interrupts the flow of the story. However, the struggle is well rewarded by the quality of the drama and the intriguing mix of the characters.

Why only 2 and half stars? This is the best book I read this year. From far. I read it twice in a row and was never bored. Can't leave it. The story is beautifull, the way this is written too. I'll give it to my friends.

It is plain from the few reviews posted here that some extreme opinions are held regarding this book. The reviewer who faults Keneally for a one sided picture of the Eretrian war is quite correct that the book is not a balanced account of the long and complex conflict. But then the book is not reportage, it is fiction, and as such - a story told from the point of view of a journalist with no prior knowledege of the war - it is perfectly reasonable. He takes sides and sympathizes with his hosts. He demonizes their enemies. Is this accurate history? No. Is it a great story? Yes.Keneally is a writter of consumate skill whose characters and settings have a sense of heightened reality. This book, whatever it's factual failings, is vivid, powerful and moving. I knew nothing about the Eretrian conflict myself when I read the novel, and was so moved by it that I was motivated to do a lot of follow up research on the subject. If Keneally meant for the book to be propoganda, then shame on him (though, if so, it is most uncommonly good propoganda). If he didn't, then the accuracy of the book is of issue only to those who have already taken sides and can't appreciate a fiction that takes an opposing point of view. And I really believe that anyone who is moved by this book will at least do, as I did, enough additional study to realize that Keneally's story is only part of the Eretrian story - one that deserves to be known.