Issayas Bahta’s world collapsed around him when his home was invaded by Ethiopian authorities and his father - a Tigrayan electrician - was shot in front of his family. He was fifteen years old. This short book is a tribute to his father - a story that has lived inside of him since that fateful day in 1976. It’s about who is father was, their family, the life they had. It’s about the author’s life before and after his father’s death, and his escape from his homeland following the death of his father. The Tigray region is located in the northern part of Ethiopia. It has been a center of conflict for decades - the Ethiopian civil war began in the early 1970s and lasted for about two decades. Today, conflict and human atrocities continue as the Ethiopian government and Eritrea armed forces battle the Tigrayan regional government. From a “world needs to know perspective,” the book is important; but the book could have flowed better, the writing was a bit dry, and I was challenged with being kept engaged. However, It was obvious this was an especially important and personal project for the author. Kudos to him for having accomplished publishing the book. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This memoir-of-sorts (semi-fictional memoir?) is a torrent of emotion poured out on the page—both in fictional personal recollections, and in the history of the war in Tigray. Issayas Y. Bahta has used his father’s death in 1976 at the hands of the Ethiopian army as a vehicle of memory to relate events around Ethiopia’s ongoing project to assimilate Tigrayans.

As with all wars, this is the story of atrocities and injustice, of families and dreams torn apart. It’s the story of displaced people—a refugee who ends up in Sudan, then Italy, and then the UK, remaking himself at each step. His is one of the happier stories, as he managed to make a life for himself; thousands, however, did not. And because the war has not ended, this story from the past is as true today as it was then.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Books Go Social for the DRC.

Sunday 29th March 1976, Colonel Beshu an Ethiopian military commander is killed by Eritrean Freedom Fighters resulting in a massacre of Eritrean civilians by the Ethiopian authorities. A victim of this massacre was an electrician. This electrician was the father of a 15-year-old boy who was forced to flee his home in wartorn Eritrea to Sudan becoming a refugee.
This book retraces the desolation of that horrific night in 1976 and the flight it compelled.

To my shame I was only marginally aware of the dire situation in Tigray. I’m not going to try to explain or summarise what’s going on there as I don’t feel qualified to do so without much more research, but what this memoir makes clear is that people are suffering due to their brutal repression by the Ethiopian government. What this moving book does so well is personalise that suffering through the experience of one young man and it’s an homage to his father who was gunned down in front of his family. Part history, part memoir, with some beautifully written lyrical passages interwoven throughout the narrative, it’s a heart-breaking account of inhumanity and cruelty. The book is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Tigray genocide, and deserves a wide readership.