In his vivid letters home to his father in the Scottish Borders, Sandy Curle (1900–80) paints an engaging picture of 1940s Ethiopia – supported by over 100 illustrations and comprehensive explanatory notes.
Sandy Curle:
Letters home from liberated Ethiopia 1941–1945
Sandy Curle: Letters home from liberated Ethiopia 1941–1945, edited by Christian Curle
In his vivid letters home to his father in the Scottish Borders, Sandy Curle (1900–80) paints an engaging picture of 1940s Ethiopia – supported by over 100 illustrations and comprehensive explanatory notes.
During the liberation, Sandy had led his Ethiopian irregular troops up from Kenya, but he had not seen his wife for three years or their new daughter – the editor of this book – at all. As part of the new Ethiopian government, he observes tensions between the restored Haile Selassie and the veterans of colonial administration.
Sent to Jimma in 1943 to advise the governor of the south-west, he wins the trust of the ‘old school’ Ras Birru, and helps support the Emperor’s modernising policies on the ground. His family is at last able to join him here in 1944 after an adventurous wartime voyage.
Full of telling detail, the letters bring alive a complex society recovering from the unpredictable and brutal Italian occupation. Sandy’s extensive social circle includes friends across the nations from his 20 years in East Africa, old comrades and, of course, Scots. He shares with us his wide interests in archaeology, religion and the natural world together with domestic worries and family drama.
FROM Professor Peter Garretson, Florida State University and biographer of Dr Hakim Warquenah
Letters home from liberated Ethiopia - LOOK INSIDE
Christian, Sandy’s daughter, finally arrives in Ethiopia at the age of nearly 5 to meet her father for the first time
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