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Fagret: The Female Survivor: The survivor of Ona- Eritrea and her immigrant life in USA | 
 enlarge | Author: Hiabu H. Hassebu
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Category: Book
Buy New: $11.99
New (17) Used (4) from $7.32
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 947411
Media: Paperback
Pages: 164
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 1434313069
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9781434313065
ASIN: 1434313069
Publication Date: May 11, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
The idea of writing a book, was in my mind for a long time. To realize it into print I needed a better time and opportunity. To say the truth, in the monastery where I used to live, I wouldn't express myself in writing as I am doing now. My conscience was not free. If I do so, I would lose my reputation. As the Abyssinian saying goes, "Be free and then act, for your acts are now changed". I followed the exact letter of the saying. I firmily believed while I was in the monastery, I wouldn't write about a subject that never concerned the religious matter. Ona's massacre was the main drive I had since I started writing about it. To write a discent story on a forgoten experience of the locals ( the Eritrean people) motivated me greately. To begin with hope and poceed with courage was my aim when I started it. Though the manuscript was finished in 2002 I was not able to put in print until 2007. In my mind I designed it to be one book, but within the process, it became two. I decided to write it in a local language of Tigrina, but I ended up publishing it in English. Writing about two stories at the same time, for me was, about dealing with two stories, files, works and preocupations. Of course it was not that easy. It was very time consuming. At the begining I looked very disorganized, but within the process I learned a lot. At last I came out with two manuscript. "Fagret" in Tigre language means a female survivor. I tried to composed the story based on a true story of a survivor in the massacre of Ona, (a village at the out skirt of Keren town).
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| Customer Reviews:
Disappointing Book... However, these stories do need to be told December 21, 2007
J. Lewis (Silver Spring, MD USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In "Fagret: The Female Survivor: The survivor of Ona-Eritrea and her immigrant link in USA" Haibu Hassebu tells the story of Fagret, a girl living in the Eritrean village of Ona. When only a baby she survived the massacre of this village's inhabitants in which her mother, six older siblings, and more than 500 other civilians were indiscriminately killed by Ethiopian soldiers. This book follows the life of Fagret following this massacre. From her growing up in an orphanage in Hebo, to journeying with her father to Kasala in Sudan, to her immigration to the United States of America, to her visit back to Eritrea. While Fagret's story is a work of fiction, it was inspired by actual events.
A note of caution... This book is high critical of Haile Selassie and Ethiopia; even though they are rarely mentioned by name. Instead the author prefers to use phrases like "Mr. Crown", "The little Jamaican god with his imported little dog", "The Enemy", "The Neighbors", and "Savage Soldiers". This book is written from the perspective of an Eritrean who detests the leadership of Ethiopia, its soldiers, and all of their actions. I say this not to make you shy away from reading this work, but only that you approach it knowing what to expect and won't feel that the book is filled with too much hatred to read to the finish. Otherwise you might not read past the first chapter.
A negative mark for the book is that it is riddled with poor English and grammatical errors. There are even entire passages that are repeated verbatim in one chapter. To be fair, the author confesses to have originally written the text in Tigrina (wish I could put a squiggly line over the 'n') and afterwards decided to publish it in English. A good editor would have been very beneficial to this book to catch these issues before publication.
I gave the book a generous 2 stars. If you take out all the author's political rants and excuse the bad grammar, you have a decent story which brings to light the horrible event that happened at Ona, describes the hardships of people living in those times, and tells the difficulties of being an immigrant. While I can not recommend this work, I won't tell you not to read it either. I do wholeheartedly hope that more people who lived during these turbulent times will share their experiences with the world.
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