A Classic Account of Contemporary Africa A novelists deeply affecting account of working as a teacher in the war-torn African state of Eritreashortlisted for Britains prestigious Thomas Cook Award. A love letter to the country he had to leave when the senseless war re-ignited... a brief and beautiful moment of calm between storms. The Sunday Times Asmara is the capital of Eritrea. It is a surreally Italian city at the center of an ex-Italian colony that has, for more than ten years, been at war with its neighbor Ethiopia, which claims sovereignty over Eritrea. Amidst the broken palaces of the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, nomadic desert encampments, and war-devastated towns, Justin Hill found a people remarkably resistant to everything fate has thrown at them. This book, a tribute to their resilience, will stand beside Philip Gouravitchs We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families as a classic account of contemporary Africa.