Hannah Pool

My Fathers’ Daughter is a memoir by British-Eritrean author Hannah Azieb Pool. Hannah was born in Eritrea, adopted from an orphanage and raised by British parents in England. As an adult she discovers she was not in fact an orphan, but her biological father and siblings are still alive. In 2003 she decides to return to Eritrea to meet her family.

I read this book as part of my read around the world challenge. As such I like to find out a little about each country. Eritrea is a small country in northeast Africa, bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan and the Red Sea, with Asmara its capital. The three main working languages are Tigrinya, Arabic and English. .Eritrea has been a largely Christian country since the fourth century, and was part of the medieval kingdom of Medri Bahri. It became an Italian colony in 1869 or 1870 during the Scramble for Africa, and was so until 1942, then fell under British rule for ten years, then Ethiopian. The Eritrean War of Independence lasted for 30 years and the country finally ruled itself in 1993. It is a one party presidential republic with no elections and some serious human rights abuses. Eritrea has compulsory military service which many flee the country to escape. There is also a strong UN peacekeeping presence. More than 100,000 lives were lost between 1998 and 2000 in the border wars with Ethiopia.

It is difficult to review a memoir as one cannot really rate another person’s memories, experiences or life, but this is just my reaction to the writing and the book. The entire book is taken up with Hannah’s two week trip to Eritrea and her preparation for it. While it is a valuable topic, and Hannah is an honest reflective writer, the extended monologue became quite repetitive. I enjoyed the little insight we were given into Eritrea but felt the endless analysis of her every thought could have been edited significantly. There were many scenes involving Hannah deciding whether to wear a dress or skirt, whether her jeans were too tight, and whether she should have a drink or smoke before meeting various family members. Oddly, despite the book’s attempt to be deep and reflective, many of the observations made were fairly superficial and seemed similar to stereotypical impressions about Africa formed by many European tourists. Although this is an important story about family, loss and identity, it was a somewhat disappointing read. My favourite line was, "When you go from Africa to the U.S. or Europe on a scholarship you get treated differently, badly, but it doesn't matter because you always have Africa, you can always come back. You will be different now that you know you can always come here.”… (más)

Return to Eritrea.
Around the time I visited Eritrea I read two books - one about an Eritrean refugee making the treacherous journey out of Eritrea and the other about Hannah Pool, a British journalist who was born in a remote village in Eritrea and adopted from an orphanage, leaving a family she had never met. They complimented each other and both, in their own ways, educated me on this country that I knew so little about.

Hannah's mother had died giving birth to her, and her father, who already had a large family, put her into an orphanage for care. The couple who adopted her were told that her parents were dead and she was adopted into Norway and then UK, as the coloured daughter of white parents. For many years she had no idea that she had any family other than her adopted one, until, at the age of 19 she received a letter from her brother, informing her that her father was still alive. She was dumb-struck, all these years she had believed that she had no living relatives and here were a brother and father in one.
However, she didn't want to hurt her adoptive father and wasn't sure of her own feelings, so it was another 10 years until she followed up on the letter. It turned out that she had a cousin visiting London and so her first move was to meet up with him. From him she learned that she had many sisters and brothers and that her father was still living.
At the age of 29 she finally found the courage to make the journey to the land of her birth and meet her large family.

The trip involved a number if issues, primarily the fact that she could only communicate directly with family members who spoke English; she had only a few words in her native tongue. She also found it very strange to find that after being so obviously black amongst so many whites in her adopted country, she now melded with the huge crowd of Eritreans when she arrived at the airport - only to discover that there were things about her that they could detect and thus label her as an 'incomer', and put her into another sub-set of the population.

Her original plan to meet with her family in the capital, Asmara, developed into a wish to see them in their home villages and see the home where she was born. This journey into the hinterlands was my favourite part of the book, a fascinating travelogue. What she found there was eye-opening and made her think again about her wish that she had been allowed to stay with her birth family.

This was a fascinating story, told with raw emotion. My only issue with it was that Hannah spent a bit too long on some of the emotional issues - shall I leave this room, no, I'll just stay here, but I must go......(not a literal quote), until the repetition became irritating. Otherwise, an excellent view into adoption into a different coloured family and the reunion with family that she had long believed dead.

Also read:
Paradise Denied by Zekarias Kebraeb (5stars)… (más)