Hidri Publishers and Awghet Bookstores launched two books entitled, Two Weeks in the Trenches: Reminiscences of Childhood and War in Eritrea, and Three Eritrean Plays, on Thursday April 24, 2008 at Embasoira Hotel here in Asmara.

 

During the launching ceremony, author of Two weeks in the Trenches, Mr. Alemseged Tesfai appreciated the initiatives taken by Hidri Publishers to make the book available to readers in Eritrea. The book was first published in the United States by the Red Sea Publishers in 2003 and has been accessible to limited people.

 

“I must admit that, when compared to the other products of my work of research and attempts at creativity, Two Weeks in the Trenches: Reminiscences of Childhood and War in Eritrea, stands out closest to my heart,” said Alemseged Tesfai.

 

“I wrote the first part of the piece [Two Weeks in the Trenches] right there in the frontlines, right there in the midst of those living, breathing and dying young men and women of the trenches,” he added.

 

In a book review he presented, Professor Abraham Kidane, said that it is a must read book for all.

 

Commenting on Two Weeks in the Trenches, Dr. Teysir Ali, from Sudan, said that he couldn’t put the book down till the end. “The book underlines the sorrow, agony…of the war and the price for peace the Eritrean people paid,” he said.

 

He also stated that if the book is to be translated into Arabic, it would play significant role in introducing the Eritrean war for liberation to the Arab world.

 

The 235-page book, describes the author’s experience, what he saw and felt during his two weeks’ stay in the trenches.

 

The second book that was launched on the same day was a collection of three plays written by Eritrean playwrights. A Village Dream, Aster, and The Snare were written by Musgun Zerai, Isaias Tsegay, and Solomon Dirar respectively.  

 

The main objective of publishing the book was to support teaching English in Eritrean schools and help teachers use drama in schools. It also intends to make more Eritrean plays available to the world community through their publication in an international language.

 

 

 

(Below is the full text of Alemseged Tesfai’s speech during the launching ceremony)

 

 

Remarks on the Occasion of the Launching of the Reprint

 

Two Weeks in the Trenches:

Reminiscences of Childhood and War in Eritrea

 

Emba Soira Hotel, Asmara, 24 April 2008

by

Alemseged Tesfai

 

I must admit that, when compared to the other products of my work of research and attempts at creativity, Two Weeks in the Trenches: Reminiscences of Childhood and War in Eritrea, stands out closest to my heart. For concentrated within its pages are teachers, passersby, relatives, comrades and other characters who came into my life to influence my thinking or to leave me with a lasting impression. Oftentimes, I sit back to reflect on why, of all the thousands of people whom I encountered over the years, these should have captivated my imagination the way they did.

      

A cruel teacher whom I later came to respect, a wheelbarrow pusher who would not let poverty and hard times diminish his pride and dignity, an “ugly” woman whom nature compensated in its own mysterious way… surely, there must have been other people of more substance, colour and clout worth remembering than such lowly individuals who would normally disappear into the recesses of one’s memory. But although I was very young, perhaps it was their simplicity, their direct and unaffected approach to the reality of their existence that attracted me to them. It was indeed an approach to life devoid of the trappings and pretensions that higher forms of living – wealth, education and power – bestow upon the privileged and the mighty.

 

These were characters or representations of characters from my childhood memory. But that particular attraction to the faceless and the nameless was to continue into my adult life, especially among fellow freedom fighters. I wrote the first part of the piece, “Two Weeks in the Trenches”, right there in the frontlines, right in the midst of those living, breathing and dying young men and women of the trenches. The second part I wrote eleven years later, upon the instigation of Zemhret Yohannes, who insisted that I fish out my notes and stories from those days for publication here in Asmara.

 

As I revisited the notes from a decade before, I was then prompted to relive those weeks in August and September of ’85 that I had spent in the trenches. Two things impressed me deeply. First was the utter simplicity, the naturalness with which those youngsters had worked, studied, laughed and fought in the vicinity, the immediacy of death. Probably because I had never been so close to death, I remembered feeling its intimidating presence around me, as if it were breathing down my neck, as if I could simply reach out and actually touch it. I had failed to discern that concern, that sense of intimidation from my ever jumping, ever wrestling and ever bantering younger comrades - and not because they were a reckless lot of trigger-happy gun slingers, no. On the contrary, they loved to live, to be, to see. They were organized and disciplined almost to a fault. They spoke the same language. They pointed in the same direction beyond the enemy trenches in front of them, to a distant beacon of light and hope that they called independence. But they never failed to add that others, and not they, would survive to see and partake of the tranquility and abundance they had expected independence would usher in.

 

Second, and for me personally more heart rending, was a realization that hit me as I took a tally of the fighters that I had written about back then. Ninety percent of those mentioned and described in my notebook did not live to see independence. I had never met most of them and I wrote only about a few of those that I had; I had just been jotting down feelings and observations as they came to me, spontaneously. They could not have died because I wrote about them - that would be a preposterous proposition; neither did I write about them after they had died. I may not be the best judge of character, but I wrote about the ones who impressed me most, the ones whom I considered best among the best. Best for their fighting abilities, best for their leadership qualities, best for their judgment and humanity, best for their wit and grit…I was alarmed by the result. If that is the rate at which the Eritrean revolution lost the best of its best, how poorer we have come back home to independence, how bereft of the choicest who could and would have made the difference!

 

I am often asked by students and other young people, why I write factual history books rather than novels. My response is that I do not know how to surpass the “stranger than fiction” reality that the Eritrean people as a whole  have been going through to get to where we are today. I simply lack the ability and the imagination to capture the heroism, the state of mind, the hopes, determination, expectations, unconsummated love; the dreams deferred or crushed, plans abandoned, joys celebrated, bitter disappointments swallowed…that have gone into the psyche of the men and women, dead and alive, fighters and civilians, who brought or helped bring about independence. It was a dilemma that I faced as a reporter at the Battle of Afabet, a dilemma that was solved for me by a piece of flesh, a human heart, that a couple of comrades and myself found fresh and oily at the gates of that town. That piece of flesh was not the product of a figment of my imagination, as some of my friends have argued. As I said earlier, I do not have so much of that.

 

For me, it was like a miracle, although I am no believer in miracles. It was as if it lay there to symbolize the whole essence, the strengths and weaknesses, the joys and sorrows, and the contradictions of our revolution. Indeed, as if it had chosen to fall there in order to give its behest to surviving and future Eritrean hearts that they should always stand on the side of good over evil, freedom over slavery, liberty over oppression and justice over injustice. It had a strong message; a message that, I hope, this book has partially conveyed in a small and humble way.