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xxix Preface to the Tigrinya edition This book which is being printed under the title A Story of a Conscript reflects my impressions when, at the age of eighteen, I traveled by sea to Italy to seek an education. It is also about the memory of my fellow-countrymen, the ascari recruits, who were traveling overseas at that time. And that is why my writing is of a young person, and also the reason why I have kept the original name that was given to me at the time of my birth. I consider myself a blessed person and thank my God for enabling me to express the concerns and feelings of my people at that young age. This work could not be published until now for want of means. Today, however, the book is being published with the loan I received from the EthiopianEritrean Unity Association. I express my gratitude to them. There is also another piece entitled Emperor Tewodros’s Suicide, which I wrote in the same period I worked on A Story of a Conscript. It is a tragedy in sixteen hundred lines of verse. That work awaits the day when it will see publication. Those who are judicious enough to compare will see that there is xxx Gebreyesus hailu a vivid, ironic contrast between them: on one end of the scale, the one who sacrifices himself for his country, and, on the other end of the scale, the one who dies fighting another man’s war, in foreign lands. Dr. A. G. Hailu ...

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