To Asmara [Paperback]

Thomas Keneally (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1990

This national bestseller by the highly-acclaimed author of "Schindler's List" tells the deeply moving and spellbinding story of an alienated Australian journalist's soul-searching journey across a war-torn Africa.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"This impassioned new work by the Australian author of Schindler's List straddles the boundary between fiction and reportage so adeptly that it almost deserves a category of its own," proclaimed PW . Several individuals journey through Ethiopia and Eritrea, encountering oppression, politics, the arid grandeur of the land and the constant struggle for survival.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

During the Ethiopian famine, a food convoy was destroyed by Eritrean rebels. The rebels, ignored by the press for decades, earned global infamy in 45 seconds of news coverage. Keneally's courageous attempt to investigate the Eritrean side of the story provided the material for this novel. Authored by the highly talented Keneally, it could have been one of the most important books of the decade. But narrator Darcy gives a journalist's account that, too often, employs understatement to convey suffering. He interrupts the story to explain in self-pitying fashion why his wife left him; it seems that Darcy, a man of convictions, has come to see that bold actions--a betrayal and an assault on an airstrip--are motivated not by politics but by the devotion of men of action to their women. Darcy's companions, zombie-like Christine, cynical Henry, and feminist Julia, are one-note creations. Finally, we're never convinced that the Eritreans aren't using Darcy to portray Ethiopian barbarities while hiding barbarities of their own. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/89.
- Frank Pisano, Pennsylvania State Univ.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (October 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446391719
• ISBN-13: 978-0446391719
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,312,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Memorable fiction or merely propoganda?, January 5, 2000

By 

Doug Vaughn - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: To Asmara (Paperback)

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.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars atypical keneally, August 24, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Asmara: A Novel of Africa (Isis (Hardcover Large Print)) (Hardcover)

Written in a more journalistic style than his later works, this book chronicles a newspaper reporter through his journey into rebel Eritrea before its independence. The reporter, and Keneally, are so smitten with the cause and the people that he cannot see objectively that he is being spoon-fed the revolution very carefully. It does a good job of exposing the Amharic tyranny over other tribes in East Africa, courtesy of Haile Selassie then Mengistu, but it seems a bit dated now that Eritrea has been recognized by the UN and Ethiopia as well. The political manipulation of food as aid still persists, however, and this book dramatizes that situation well, with a bit of Anne Tyler-esque marital dissolution thrown in for "personal growth".

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars About Asmara, January 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: To Asmara (Paperback)

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.