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 Hannah
Pool is, in her own words, British-Eritrean, Eritrean-British. She was
born in Eritrea in 1974 and was adopted at the age of six months by a
British scholar who lived and worked in the Sudan. She was raised in
Manchester, England, believing that both her parents had died shortly
after her birth. She now lives in London where she works as a columnist
for The Guardian. At the age of nineteen, she received a letter from her
brother informing her that her father was alive and she had a sister and
several brothers who lived in Eritrea. It took ten years for her to make
the decision to meet with her birth family. She then embarked on a
journey which took her back to her origins and which she recounts in her
book titled My Fathers’ Daughter (Hamish Hamilton, 2005.)
Hannah, who came to Eritrea last summer to visit her family, gave a
reading from her book at the British Council in Asmara on the 25th of
August 2008. The next day she gave an interview to a group of
journalists and following is a selection of questions and answers from
that session.
Q: When did you first think of writing a book about your story?
H.P: I always knew I was going to write my story. I write; that is what
I do. I am an author. For the last ten years I have worked as a
journalist. I did not know if it was going
to be a book or an article for a newspaper or magazine, but I knew I was
going to write it. When I got an offer for a book deal, I thought it was
great.
Q: What were your reactions when you finished writing the book?
H.P: Writing was not difficult. In fact, writing was a pleasurable
experience for me. What was difficult was to engage in the actual
journey, going on the trip, going
through the feelings and experiences. That was difficult, not the
writing itself.
Q: What kind of reactions did you get from it?
H.P: I had great reactions, good reviews. I received emails from
Eritreans all over the world and also from people with stories similar
to mine and I realized my story was also
theirs.
Q: How did you feel meeting others like you?
H.P: It was great to meet other Eritreans. I did not know many of them
when I was growing up. It is a powerful experience to meet Eritreans and
also to meet my relatives
all over the world. Meeting people with similar stories make you feel
better. I was also interested in the stories of women because they may
not have the same chances to be
heard.
Q: What has been the most touching event so far?
H.P: Well I hope it is yet to come! My book is a memoir about my journey
so far. But indeed, meeting my family, meeting my father here in Asmara
and I hope there will be more touching events like that.
Q: What is it like to be adopted?
H.P: This is a very difficult question with many complicated issues. I
can only tell of my own experience. There are many issues involved:
issues about identity, especially if you have white parents. There are
issues of heritage, security, about knowing who your are. When people
want to adopt a child, at the beginning it is a beautiful thing, but it
is a beautiful thing that comes out a tragedy. Adoption must not be seen
as the first solution. We must find ways to think of other solutions
before adoption.
Q: When did you come to realize you were adopted?
H.P: In my case it was obvious from the beginning. When I was a child,
people checked if my adoptive father had not kidnapped me. I always knew
I was adopted. My father is a
friend of Eritrea and had lots of connections with the Eritrean
community.
Q: Did your adoptive parents tell you about how you were adopted?
H.P: My dad was always very open. I always knew. At the time, my
adoptive parents lived in Sudan (my dad is British and his wife was
American.) At one time my adoptive mother was invited to visit the
Camboni Mission in Asmara and they left with me. My adoptive mother died
while we still lived in the Sudan. Then I was sent to Norway and it is
only several years later that I went to England to live with my adoptive
father.
Q: Were there many challenges growing up black in a white community?
H.P: Yes, very much so. There was a lot of racism. When you are a kid,
people call you names. They shout at you: “famine victim” or make monkey
noises when you go by. Then when I was older, I also experienced what it
felt like for people not wanting to be friends with you because you are
black.
Q: How did you react then?
H.P: Most black kids could understand me, but if you lived in a white
family, then you would feel isolated. You did not have anyone to talk
with. But also, in my case, even black children could be mean because I
was like a white person: I spoke like a white person. You would feel
very isolated. Basically you are on your own.
Q: How did you go about it when you wanted to trace your family back?
H.P: I spent lots of time not wanting to trace my family back. It is a
very emotional issue but also it is very difficult. One takes great
risks when taking the decision to trace one’s family back. One should be
very careful and very thoughtful before taking any decisions. It is like
opening a can of worms. Once it is open you don’t know what is going to
happen. Also you are afraid. You are afraid of being rejected by both
families. You are afraid your adoptive family feels resentful towards
you. In fact, I felt as if I was betraying them. And my birth family, I
was just afraid they would reject me and I would find myself isolated
again.
Q: What do you think you would have been if you had not been adopted?
H.P: I would have been a regular Eritrean girl, maybe an Asmarina.
Q: What was the “eureka” moment for you in this journey?
H.P: Making the decision that I was going to do it: to go and find them.
But it was not easy to do it and I had to do it step by step. I began by
just booking my flight as if I was going anywhere in the world.
Q: What was you reaction when you got the letter from you birth family?
H.P: My dad received the letter and he waited for me to come back home
for the holidays to tell me about it. It took me ten years before I made
the decision to go and meet them.
Q: When it came time to actually meet with your birth family, how did
you feel?
H.P: I was just panicked. When I was about to meet them, I realized I
was just ten minutes away from meeting them and it was just pure panic.
I was wondering if they would realize how panicked I was.
Q: Do you feel different from other adopted children?
H.P: Everyone is unique. In some ways my case may be extreme but we are
all unique although we probably all feel lonely and isolated. I could
not hide my adoption and there are many places where adoption is kept a
secret and some people keep it a secret for a very long time. After I
wrote my book lots of people came to me to tell me they were adopted and
that no one knew.
Q: How long did it take you to write your book?
H.P: When I decided to write the book, I changed my work schedule so
that I could have one day a week to work on it. And when my deadline was
getting closer, I worked on it on the weekends, then in the mornings,
but it took at least a year. Just drawing the genealogical tree that is
at the end of the book took me quite some time!
Q: What was the writing process like for you?
H.P: Most of the book comes out of the notes that I took while going
through this journey. I did not really keep a diary but when I came to
Eritrea for the first time, I came
on my own. I had a tape recorder to talk to and a notebook that was like
my friend. I mixed the diary and the recording otherwise I would simply
forget details.
Q: What was your first impression of Asmara?
H.P: It is the people, the kindness and friendliness of people being so
helpful that was striking to me. In England it is different: you don’t
easily start conversations in cafes for example. When I went to the
orphanage from where I was adopted, in 5 minutes they found my adoption
files from 30 years ago and that was my first encounter with bureaucracy
in Eritrea. Asmara is beautiful; the architecture is amazing, but that
is superficial compared to the warm welcome I received. And that is what
touched me, how pleased people were to welcome me. When I was growing
up, I was used to very negative images of Africa. I was never shown the
side of Africa that I saw when I came here. It is fun here. It is not at
all what you think of when you grow up in the West. I was so surprised
to find that Asmara was a cafe society, for example. It simply blew my
mind.
Q: Do you have stories to publish in England about Eritrea?
H.P: Not for the moment, I know so little about Eritrea although my dad
has written about it professionally. So far, I can only write about my
family and myself. In my work as a journalist, I write about lifestyle,
fashion, and celebrities in England. I majored in sociology and for the
last ten years I have worked as a journalist for The Guardian and I also
freelance in women’s magazines.
Q: What interests you in Eritrea?
H.P: The social aspect. What interests me is to give an image about
artists here, filmmakers, for example.
Q: Do you feel it was brave of you to put your feelings into words?
H.P: Writing helped me order my thoughts and feelings when I met my
family. Being adopted, being put in an orphanage, all these issues… the
book allowed me to stop and think about these things. The book helped me
but it was not my therapy. It was a way of having a voice. It was like
writing a letter to my dad and my (biological) father. Writing allows
you to clearly express yourself without being interrupted. I was lucky
to have that. The book is there. It is a permanent reminder, and for me
it helped me think about things very clearly.
 Q: When the book was finished did you ask people to review it?
H.P: I showed the book to my dad and to an Eritrean friend and I asked
them to tell me if there was anything they did not like. My dad said he
was proud of me and had just one
or two minor corrections with spelling of names or so. Well, yes I was
worried about people’s reactions but it is a small worry compared to
meeting your birth father after 30 years. And I learned that if you meet
your fears then you feel you can do anything.
Q: Are you working on another book now?
H.P: Yes, it is fiction this time but I can’t talk about it.
Q: How do you feel about your own identity? Do you feel you are British,
do you feel you are Eritrean?
H.P: I went through different phases. Once I heard a song which
mentioned Eritrea and I was so excited. I said: “This is me: I am
Eritrean.” But also I never felt as British as when I met my family for
the first time. Being a returnee has its own flag: You may not fit here
or there but there is another identity. I came to understand that there
are others like me and now I am comfortable with that.
Q: You made a name for yourself as Hannah Pool. How about your birth
name, have you thought of taking your biological father’s name now that
you have met with him?
H.P: I did not change my name. Names are powerful symbols. Often,
adoptive parents choose a name for the child they have adopted. And if
they do not keep your original name somehow, then it means they take
that away from you. My parents kept my original name, Azieb, as a middle
name so that I could always use it if I wanted to. Hannah, the name they
gave me, works in almost every country. I actually went through a phase
where I wanted to be Azieb; I thought it was very exotic. It was part of
acknowledging my black identity in England. And here in Eritrea, I love
that Azieb is just a common name. But I have always been Hannah Pool and
for the last ten years, I have worked as a journalist as Hannah Pool.
Now I feel secure enough to not have to change my name. It is more
important for me to learn Tigrinya, to know my father, to know more
about Eritrea.
Q: Do you think your birth father would like you to take your original
name back?
H.P: For him I am and will always be Azieb Asrat.
Thank you Hannah-Azieb for this interview.
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