Half a Knife → Educators
What should the next generation inherit from an unfulfilled struggle?
Half a Knife gives a class or a reading group a first-person case through which to examine testimony, archive, political identity, strategic failure, exile, apology, civic resistance, and the ethics of writing from inside a conflict.
Course fit
Where it teaches well
African studies & Horn of Africa politics
Ethnic federalism, the 2016 protests, the Tigray and Amhara conflicts, and diaspora political organisation — from a participant, with dated sources.
Peace and conflict studies
A case study in escalation, foreclosure of political options, and the argument for patient civic action made by someone who left that road and came back to it.
Memoir and life writing
How a writer uses his own archive to correct his memory and resist self-exoneration — and what happens to a narrator who does.
Media, disinformation & digital politics
Political persuasion on Facebook in a low-connectivity country, the astroturfing economy, and one writer’s reckoning with his own reach.
Ethics of testimony
What may be published from a private and political archive, what must be withheld, and who gets endangered by the difference.
Book clubs & student associations
Designed to hold a 60–75 minute conversation between readers who do not agree with each other.
Ten questions
Discussion questions
They move from comprehension to analysis to evaluation. Any three will fill an hour.
- What is the difference between the justice of a cause and the effectiveness of a strategy?
- How does the author’s archive constrain, challenge, or strengthen his memory?
- When does testimony become confession, and what does confession require that testimony does not?
- Can a writer acknowledge personal responsibility without falsely assuming responsibility for everything that happened?
- What does exile change about political judgement, obligation, and helplessness?
- Why does the author argue that writing only in Amharic creates a chamber? What is gained and lost by writing in English?
- How should a reader evaluate an account that explicitly refuses to flatter any side?
- What are the ethical limits of publishing private or archived political material?
- What makes peaceful civic action “unglamorous,” and why might that make it harder to sustain?
- What would a “truer map” for the next generation need to contain?
What you get
The educator pack
A short PDF, free to download and adapt — no form, no signup.
| Section | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Book and course fit | Description, the central discussion question, where the book fits a syllabus, and ordering information. |
| Context note | Concise, sourced background on Ethiopian ethnic federalism and the 2016–2023 period, with terms defined. Written to be usable by a class with no prior knowledge. |
| How the book was written | Memory, archive, selection, limits, and the ethical cautions the author worked under. |
| Themes and questions | The ten discussion questions above, plus a 60-minute class plan and assignment options. |
| Host a conversation | An event description you can paste, five questions for a moderator, ground rules worth reading out, and a technical checklist — built for a conversation, not a rally. |
Eight pages, about 150 KB. Free to copy and adapt for a class or a reading group.
One hour, ready to run
A 60-minute class plan
- Pre-reading — the preface and one chapter of your choosing. Students arrive with one sentence they resisted.
- Opening prompt (5 min) — “Name a cause you believe is just. Now name the strategy being used for it. Are they the same claim?”
- Small groups (15 min) — three of the discussion questions, one per group.
- Evidence exercise (20 min) — put a passage of the author’s recollection beside the dated record it rests on. What does the record support? What does it not?
- Plenary (15 min) — groups report; the class tries to state the book’s argument in one sentence, then tries to state the strongest case against it.
- Closing reflection (5 min) — one sentence each: what would you refuse to inherit?
Copies and conversations
Review copies, libraries, and author visits
Review / desk copy
Considering the book for a course? Write with your name, institution, and the course — requests are handled individually.
Libraries
ISBNs, formats, distributor and order information, catalogue summary, subject terms, and author biography — on one sheet for acquisitions.
Four pages, PDF.
An author conversation
Online or, where practical, in person: a class visit, a campus conversation, or a book-club call. Moderated, with real questions.
A note for teachers
Teach it as a position, not as a survey
The book does not claim neutrality and should not be assigned as if it were a textbook. It is one participant’s documented account, written from a stated political position that it also puts on trial. That is what makes it useful in a classroom: students can test a first-person claim against the record it rests on, and against other accounts.
It contains descriptions of political killings and their aftermath, including lists of the dead. Nothing is gratuitous, but a class should be told in advance.