Military Campaigning Abroad and Women’s Writing in Colonial Eritrea (1912–1918)

Several scholars have observed how during the nineteenth and twentieth century new forms of literary expressions were experienced in Ethiopia and Eritrea. This significant phenomenon has been mostly analyzed by focusing on the works and writings of a very limited number of intellectuals, state officials, and civil servants. Little attention has been paid to private and informal ways of writing. Colonized women, in particular, are absent from this debate and thus there is a very limited evidence of female participation in this communicative transformation. This article argues that for most of the colonial period, Eritrean women embraced a new relationship with the written word that soon became an indispensable practice and a tool to negotiate their place in society. The prolonged campaigning of Eritrean troops abroad forced many soldiers’ wives to adopt the use of letter writing as an effective tool for protecting their rights vis-à-vis their husbands and the colonial state. Using a selection of written records produced by soldiers’ wives, this article presents writing as a practice that alongside inhibiting physical and territorial distance helped women to stand up for their rights, interests and dignity.