📚Book Club 002 - Truth & Reconstruction (Oromay, Baalu Girma)
​This November, we’re reading together again.
​Our second theme is Truth & Reconstruction.
​Who gets to tell the story of home? How do we make sense of conflicting accounts of the past? And what happens when the histories we’ve inherited don’t reflect the experiences of those who lived them?
​Our main read is Baalu Girma’s Oromay, a novel set in Eritrea during Ethiopia’s Derg regime. Through the experiences of a journalist working on a government propaganda campaign in Asmara, the novel explores political power, nationalism, conflicting narratives and the realities of war.
​Alongside it, we’ll draw on Achille Mbembe’s Out of the Dark Night as an optional companion text for thinking about colonialism, memory, decolonisation and the possibilities of imagining different futures. You don’t need to read the whole companion text.
​Together, we’ll explore how history is told, whose perspectives are preserved or erased, and whether there are other ways of telling the story.
​You don’t need to be an academic or seasoned reader. Just come curious and ready to talk.
​Sunday 29 November
7pm GMT 8pm CET / 10pm EAT / 2pm EST 11am PST
​Online via Google Meet
Free