Half a Knife → Launch conversation
The cause is just.
The strategy fell short.
The conversation starts here.
The launch conversation for Half a Knife. A short reading, a moderated interview, a scholar’s response, a next-generation reader’s response, and your questions. Seventy-five minutes. Online and recorded.
The conversation follows publication on 5 September 2026. The date and the registration link are announced by email first.
Details
When and where
The essentials
- Date and time To be announced, shortly after publication on 5 September 2026. The hour will be chosen to be reachable from Ethiopia, Europe, and North America on the same evening.
- Length 75 minutes, including 15 minutes of audience questions
- Where Online. The live room is on Zoom; a recording follows on YouTube.
- Cost Free. Registration required.
- Language English
On the panel
- Baye Teshager Asmamaw — the author.
- An independent moderator — not a political ally of the author, and asked in advance to press him. To be announced.
- A historian or scholar — asked to say where the book is weakest. To be announced.
- A next-generation reader — an Ethiopian reader roughly 20–35, asked what they take from the book and what they refuse. To be announced.
The panel is deliberately not made up of people who already agree with the author. Names are published here as each one is confirmed.
The shape of the evening
What happens, in order
- Welcome — 5 minutes. What this is, what it is not, and how questions work.
- The author reads — 8 minutes. One passage, read plainly.
- Moderated interview — 22 minutes. Evidence, strategy, cost, apology, and method.
- Scholar’s response — 12 minutes. Including where the book is weakest.
- Next-generation response — 8 minutes. What a younger reader takes, and refuses.
- Audience questions — 15 minutes. Submitted live and in advance at registration.
- Close — 5 minutes. One short word about where to find the book.
On the table
Questions the moderator will put
Published in advance, so nobody arrives expecting a friendly evening.
- What did you understand correctly that the movement still failed to act on effectively?
- Which belief changed most when the archive was placed beside memory?
- What personal decision do you now regard as a mistake, and what evidence led you there?
- How do you defend a people’s right to life without treating every strategy used in its defence as wise?
- What did distance and exile make clearer, and what did they distort?
- What should a 25-year-old Ethiopian do differently after reading this book?
Ground rules
What this event is not
Not a rally
There are no chants, no calls to action, and no fundraising. Attending signals nothing about your politics.
Not an endorsement ceremony
No sequence of congratulatory speeches. The scholar has been asked to say where the book fails, and the moderator has been asked to press.
Not a debate stage
Substantive disagreement is welcome and will get airtime. Personal attacks, ethnic slurs, and side-arguments will be cut off.
Not off the record
The conversation is recorded and published. By joining the live room you consent to being part of that recording; you can attend without your camera or your name.
Host one yourself
Bring the conversation to your campus or reading group
There is a kit for it: a poster, an event description, a moderator guide, five questions, and a technical checklist. Built for a 60–75 minute conversation, not a rally package.
Can’t make the date?
Write in anyway — the replay, a transcript, and the discussion questions go out to everyone who asked, whether or not they were in the live room.