After drawing on the subjects of origins, identities, language, and her childhood experiences in Ethiopia in the acclaimed Burnt Eucalyptus Wood, Catalan author Ennatu Domingo is back with a new nonfiction book which explores what it means to be an Afro-European and a Black woman travelling between Europe and Africa today. On Both Sides Of The Mirror: Reflections on race and gender between Europe and Africa was published on March 18th in the original Catalan and translated into Spanish by Navona Editorial. All translation rights are currently available.
The book launch was held in Barcelona at the Ona bookstore, to a packed house, where the author and her editor, Ernest Folch, had a talk about the experiences that inspired this work and why it is an essential work to understand the world we live in today.
On Both Sides of the Mirror is a brave and necessary testimony that seeks to engage with and confront racism and inequality. In the opening pages, the author’s experience as a volunteer in a United Nations refugee camp in Greece reveals how the way we perceive each other shifts depending on which side of the mirror we find ourselves. These memories contrast with her travels across Europe and to African countries such as Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Senegal. The author weaves a mosaic of reflections on what it means to be Afro-European and to travel alone as a Black woman, exploring the differences between traveling from Europe to Africa and from Africa to Europe. At the same time, she highlights how the relationships between the two continents, particularly in the realms of development and migration, are shaped by an inherent institutional racism.
Her previous book, Burnt Eucalyptus Wood, was published in the original Catalan and translated into Spanish by Navona in 2022, and has since been translated into English (with The Indigo Press) and German (with Orlanda Verlag).
Ennatu Domingo was born in Ethiopia in 1996. She holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Kent in Canterbury (England) and an MA in International Conflict and Security from the University of Kent in Brussels (Belgium). She interned at the International Crisis Group (ICG), at their offices in Nairobi (Kenya); she was awarded a Schuman traineeship to work at the Department of Foreign Affairs at the European Parliament in Brussels, in the field of relations between the European Union and countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific; and she has worked as a research assistant for the think tank European Center for Development Policy Management (ECDPM). She is currently a member of the Parliament of Catalonia.
For more information about Ennatu Domingo’s work, please contact Anna Soler-Pont (anna@pontas-agency.com).