Born at the End of the World

Author: Donica Merhazion

Elen is on the verge of an arranged marriage in 1960s rural Ethiopia when she escapes to the nearest city across the border in nearby Eritrea. Years later, she has created a life for herself in Asmara; she is the mother of two children and the owner of a successful bar. Yet her life is transformed when she is catapulted into an underground resistance movement against the Derg, the brutal Ethiopian military regime; she saves many lives as an undercover freedom fighter but when the Derg eventually arrest, torture and imprison her, she must find a way to stay alive to save her unborn child.

Girmai is a street boy turned influential entrepreneur and member of the resistance, who meets Elen by chance at the local bar. Impressed by her discretion and instinctive knack for reading people, he swiftly recruits her to the underground cell network. They fall in love and begin a clandestine relationship despite Girmai's marriage to someone else. As the Derg closes in on Asmara, and executes and tortures ever increasing numbers of resistors and civilians, Elen discovers she is pregnant. Shortly afterwards, Girmai is forced to flee across borders to escape certain death after Elen’s arrest and leaves behind everything he’s built.

Separated by the Derg’s brutality, Elen and Girmai both must bear the consequences of their love and their choices as freedom fighters, and find the strength to face a future where they may never see each other again.

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