Towards Asmara

Towards Asmara is a novel by Australian writer Thomas Keneally. It was originally published by Hodder and Stoughton in Australia and the United Kingdom in 1989. The novel is also known by the alternative title To Asmara.

Synopsis

The novel follows a group of travellers in Eritrea. One of their number, Darcy, an Australian journalist and lawyer, is attempting to prove that the Ethiopians are using international food aid relief as a cover for their gun-running.

Publishing history

After its initial publication in Australia and the UK by Hodder and Stoughton in 1989, the novel was reprinted as follows:

Warners Books, USA, 1989
Lester and Orpen Dennys, Canada, 1989
Sceptre, UK, 1990 and 2002

Dedication

"To my family who allowed me for a time to travel with the compassionate Eritrean Relief Association, and the brave Eritrean People's Liberation Front."

Critical reception

Writing in The Canberra Times reviewer Mark Thomas noted: "Over the years Keneally has specialised in earnestly exhuming worthy subjects, ranging from Jimmie Blacksmith to Confederate soldiers to Joan of Arc to Schindler and his ark. With Towards Asmara, he has perfected the technique, in insisting that we make room for the Eritrean cause in our consciences...The novel is accordingly clogged with factual detail and cluttered with background information, all designed to make the Eritreans a bit more familiar and congenial to us...But, as with Schlinder's Ark, the reader may be left wondering precisely what he is being asked to read. The characters carry a heavy burden of philosophical and political baggage. The plot is thin and slow, focussed on a few foreigners' desultory traipsing around Eritrea in search of an errant father, a requited love, a rebel ambush and a little something to believe in."