Book 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).