My friend’s book is finally published!!! It’s a memoir on her life. Titled ‘Blue Daughter of the Red Sea’, i have long anticipated this. I haven’t got the book yet but a quick search in the Amazon gave me the satisfying smile. I still remembered the times me, her and Yvette spent together @ Berkeley, talking about the contract Meti was about to sign with the publisher….
Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is the cover:
Editorial Review
From the Publisher
Terrace Books, a trade imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press
From the Back Cover”This is a world of violence, turmoil, strife. . . . I was completely taken by the plight of [Birabiro's] characters, the life she represents of this part of the world so few of us know anything about. The impact it made on me as a reader is a devastating one. It’s a reminder that people will rise against all odds to survive and prevail.”–Marjorie Agosin, author of At the Threshold of Memories: New and Selected Poems
“When I began to read this memoir, I could not put it down. There is an intensity of experience, a poignancy in the voice of the child-narrator that tells her own harrowing story of poverty and marginality. But at the same time, there is a lyrical tone to her writing. She is able to capture beauty amidst the horrors. And also, she is able to continue becoming human in a dehumanized world.”–Virgil Suarez, author of Guide to the Blue Tongue
About the Author
Meti Birabiro studied Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She currently lives in the United States.
Excerpted from Blue Daughter of the Red Sea: A Memoir by Meti Birabiro. Copyright � 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
“Poverty is venom that slowly saps one’s existence. It is a white noise that quakes the shape of survival. It corrodes the scenery and cuts one’s world asunder. I was born and grew up in the heart of that corrosive acid. Dire Dawa, a small city warmly embraced by a fiery sun and caressed by some magicless dust, was the name of my hometown. Life was not charming in Dire Dawa. Children ran barefoot against a background of feces-embedded roads, spinning around the desert city, puffing on the sand so forming dunes of smaller versions, while the little ones piggybacked on their mother’s back. They had the appearance of several shiny, brown ponies: untamed and wild creatures. Their feet moved like those of a ballerina without her tutu, dancing to the tune of an unheeded song: free. Their laughter rang like a violent rain of diamonds. And they shouted in a language as inarticulate as their age, and yelled in voices as overly used as the sole of the shoe that was guarded at home for special occasions.”–Excerpt from Blue Daughter of the Red Sea
Book Description
Born into a life of constant financial, physical, and moral threat, Meti Birabiro takes refuge in literature and the fantastic. Blue Daughter of the Red Sea is Birabiro’s poetic account of the harsh reality of her young life spread across three continents. Her voice is a fresh m�lange of child and adult perspectives, at once brutally honest and wise beyond her years. Through the journey from Ethiopia to Italy, and finally to the United States, we encounter Birabiro’s relatives, friends, and enemies–relationships so intense that these people become her vampires, devils, angels, and saints. These character designations always lead her back to the truth. They help her to decipher what is fair and good, to understand what she must cherish and what she must rage against.