Once upon in Africa - C' era una volta in Africa

The poems in this book (the author's fourth one) are of different subjects. Some describe the lands of Eritrea and Ethiopia and their uniqueness and grandiosity; the incredible expanse of their high plateaus; the roaring power of their deserts; the shining splendor of their lakes and sea. Others celebrate the beauty of the author's spouse, Giordana, and the deep bond the author and his wife had the good fortune to share, uninterruptedly, until her death in 2003. Still others take up the tales of various peoples of those lands, from the slyly, lucid novels of the Amharas, to the mocking stories of the Gouraghe and the absurd, quipping fantasies of the Oromo. Finally, a last group includes poems dedicated to events, environments and situations typical of everyday life in Eritrea and Ethiopia in the Sixties, verses addressed to friends, meditations and inner reflections. This book is in its own way a celebration of the African world, as the book published by the author in 2010, entitled "Ninety Three Days: A Journey to Freedom" (ISBN 978-1452879413), which is a testament to the brutal civil war that ravaged those two countries in the Horn of Africa after the ousting of Emperor Hail Sellassi I, and to the author escape to Sudan.