In this richly researched and lucidly written collection of essays, ‘The Freedom of the Writer’ and Other Selected Literary and Cultural Essays, Ghirmai Negash provides solid analysis and information on some of the salient aspects of Eritrean literature and culture. Chapter one deals with the Freedom of the Writer. Written in 1992, it presents a penetrating examination of the state of Eritrean literature and authors under colonial regimes, but also anticipates what could go wrong in post-independence Eritrea. Chapter 2 discusses the role of institutions in the development of arts, and chapters 3 and 5 examine the role of oral tradition, and particularly of oral poetry, in the society’s culture and literature. Chapter 4 deals with the marginalized history and postcoloniality of Tigrinya literature. Chapter 6 tells how the novel Deqwan Tebereh, by Eritrea’s foremost, contemporary writer Beyene Haile, sees the role of the intellectual and the artist in the construction of a postcolonial African nation and society. The last chapter offers a “proposed” model for a “Standardized Punctuation System for Modern Tigrinya.”

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