a large community trade between the 2 countries, this stalling hundreds of thousands are stranded here. unable to return home to a country where political violence is escalating sheriff hopes getting will eventually break free from the cold days rule and the police killings will stop. so we can finally return home. because hawke al-jazeera the car your challenges. there are a reminder of our top stories. u.s. president donald trump has pardoned his former national security advisor. michael flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the f.b.i. and 2017, during an investigation into russian meddling in the presidential election. also in jordan has more from washington d.c. . this is something which started talking about nearly 9 months ago. this as michael flynn was trying to change his guilty plea and accusing the federal

prosecutors of that basically, entrapping him legal saga that really has overhauled the trumpet ministration. the allegations of russian meddling in u.s. political processes of corruption and of other untoward possibly treasonous behavior by members of the trumpet ministration, as well as by some of trump's outside supporters. u.s. president elect joe biden, used his thanksgiving message to urge americans to stay safe. during the pandemic, he acknowledged growing fatigue with restrictions, but welcome positive news on vaccine development. the number of recorded coronavirus cases worldwide has now surpassed 60000000 in the us 2400 people died of covert 19 in the past 24 hours a 6 month high. argentina has declared 3 days of national mourning for footballing legend, diego maradona,

who has died at the age of 60 fans in one desirous of been celebrating the life of man who led argentina to victory in the one $986.00 world. cup ethiopia's prime minister is rejecting international mediation efforts to end the crisis in the northern tier gray region. a deadline issued to grain forces to surrender has now passed. regional leaders deny being surrounded by government forces. sudan's former prime minister said the girl mandy has died of coronavirus the age of 84. he was the country's last democratically elected prime minister before a military coup led by the sheer in 1909. the bodies of 8 migrants have been recovered on spain's canary islands. after the boat capsized on choose day, the vessel was one of 17 intercepted in the island's waters in 24 hours. those were headlines about with more news in half an hour. do stay with us, the stream is next. talk to al jazeera, we realistically, how can you deal with institutionalized corruption in this country? we listen. if this breaks up a conflict between pakistan and india,

this has implications for the rest of the world. we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on al-jazeera. and i think me ok, welcome to the stream. today we're going to be joined by the writer gets we will be talking about writing her journey through the literally wells and her tainted novel . the shooter and king was nice to see you. welcome back to the banking so much. it's wonder how great much they feel to have someone hold your book as a writer, what's not sat there like insight? i still can't get use to it. i can't help it. i start smiling every time. every time i see it, it's been an incredible journey with this pork. it has been years of work and it's

come to this point that i never, never thought possible. i had no idea that me, you would be there holding my book on television, who would have thought. so this is fantastic. listen when i describe it as a writer, i left it at that. i'm looking at your instagram page right here. and it says here writes many was shoot the film. how would you like to describe yourself as people love to put labels on writers and love to join was on the militant labels on them. if you were writing your own description, what would you tell our audience about you? you had a good research with that. by the way. i am a writer. i am a novelist, i'm an essayist. i am someone with a very deep appreciation for the art and history of photography. i love to

make my own photographs and like my short bio on instagram says i use of old film camera. i use black and white film. but my bio, i don't know if that would have a target for on there. and this is a discussion i've had with, with a few people because i understand the level of work that goes into calling yourself a photographer. it's not just simply pretty pictures. there's a philosophy, there are concepts behind this work the same way that i feel comfortable calling myself a writer because i understand the philosophies that guide my work with photography . i'm learning, but i have a very deep respect and maybe too much respect for for fatah. other photographers, i know the work that they do. one day i would like to get there, but right now i am a deep appreciator and a practice or so missouri right now. we are on youtube which means there and you

tube is can ask you questions. i am curious as to we need describe yourself. you didn't look describe your nationality. i want to know why nobody is going to be really mad with you right now. really earlier. you to hear you talk to them as about her writing home work the shadow king a bell. you can relate to and this stories that they have to tell really you have you have a for the next 20 minutes or so. let me get started with the shadow king. so anyone who hasn't read it doesn't know the story. just very briefly tell us what it's about. well, the novel is set in 1935 during mussolini's invasion of ethiopia in an attempt to colonize it. it tells the story of this war from both sides of the battlefield. the italians as well as the ethiopians. but my main characters are women women who

fought in the war and i sent her my attention on an orphan named tito. and the person that she works with works for us there who is a noble woman. and i look at war through the lens of someone who is very poor, who is only role in society, is supposed to be as a maid or a servant. but who feels like she was born to be something else beyond what society has made of her. and i also talk about this through are there are the noble woman who has had the, supposedly all the privileges of a high social standing in ethiopia. and yet she also has felt constricted by her role as a woman in society. i mean a raman has read the show again, this is what she told us about it earlier. so the listen. i said to the will your

version of the show and i thought it was absolutely, absolutely and fascinating read. especially when i learned that it was based around true events that ethiopia was able to hold off an invasion by italian forces less, than you see on t.v., one of the stillness armies in the world at the time. i also heard somewhere that is then that you spent years fighting this novel and i wonder how much of that time was spent might in the novel viruses researching the events that that is a really good question. my research on this war started immediately in those early parts of the 1935. so i was doing both research and writing this story, but something happened at about the 5 year mark when i i thought i was finished. i had done so much research that i knew this history. i had finished the book. it was,

i think it was almost a 1000 pages at that point. it was 890 or 900 something. pages. but it wasn't a story that i wanted to write. i realized i was telling a historical story as opposed to a story of human beings. and part of the reason the book took so long was that after 5 years, i threw away that manuscript and started again from page one and rewrote the entire book centering women centering here to it. and the book took another, took another 5 years. i did not think that would happen. i thought i could get this done in maybe a year, and that wasn't the case. anybody who really has a desire to write is going to be shot that you scrap book and you started again. let me share with people,

again the process that you went through to make sure that the references in your book was accurate as he possibly could make them. and i'm going to recommend you read this article expecting we're behind a war novel. you talk about when we talk about war and to be sure you read the book, it's putting those 2 things together, no idea that you don't shy away from science theory is one of the many things that the novel does brilliantly is to engage with the violence this is central to the book was the novel because that for an hour, not just about the beauty of or but also any, and the imperial struggle it engage in the arms not only at the level of for nations, people, castles, but also all married. love of that men do to men that men do to women

and women do to them. and for my question of the earth, when you started writing with malvo, and while you were engaged in writing it, to what extent were you aware of the need to engage with violence and all these shapes, with all these contradictions to a time. and how did he go? thank you so much for that. i mean, i think we understand war, at least my sense of it is that we witness in war through films we, we see war through photographs that come from areas of conflict. and those are either images that have been sanitized and made to look good for the cinema, or they have been flattened and made still for photographs to be printed in newspapers or magazines. and i, i wanted to create a movement of

a violence to create this, this sense of war that affects everyone, not just soldiers, but civilians as well. because this is the reality that when force meets force, it creates devastations beyond what we can ever imagine. and i am speaking this right now as an ethiopian, when we are witnessing conflict in our country, that is heartbreaking. it is absolutely devastating the humanitarian consequences of political and ideological disagreements. they are devastating generations. it's not clean, it's not neat. it does not happen between 2 men who have weapons and point at each other under fair circumstances. and i wanted to understand the true brutalities

of this, that impact generations can a country truly heal from this. and what happens when a country has had one last one war, one conflict after another? where does the trauma go? and how do we begin to speak of this so that we can speak together through this divide? and i wanted to think about this in my novel 1935, but writing it also as an american who witnessed the afghan and iraq wars who witnessed the devastation is the way that we're still dealing with this. now guantanamo prison is not closed yet. what does it do to us, to witness this? can language bear, the weight of all these violent acts? i wasn't sure, but i wanted to try. i wanted to see if there was a way that i could put into language the many layers of devastations that happen in conflict. and i think that the language in which i wrote

you needed to be something special to, to understand all the complexities of war. thank you for that question. mussen i was just scrolling through your tweets to see if there was any hint of what was happening in your ancestral home of pia in your thoughts as you were on social. and i found this and maybe i'm reading a lot into it, my country, ethiopia, i feel that you poor at your, your pain, into that very short sentence about what is happening for you. back home. you will 2 books, both talk about worn ethiopia, but you different types. is that something that is will continue to be a seam in you as nice you can, do you always think somewhere about conflict?

you know, i really don't rush and roger was president, i think i'm like, ok, nobody said countries. i love the most ridiculous question in my life. i'm libyan are laughing at me. let me tell you. because this is what happens. this war at 1930 has shaped my understanding of what it means to be ethiopian, the fact that we beat italians, you know, this highly equipped, aggressive, and brutal military. we beat them. so if you can imagine as a young girl coming to america, immigrant, black, african in a place that didn't understand her where i was often ridiculed and you know, i was bullied. and i had this history to fall back on. because when americans are telling me that i don't belong or that i am nothing,

i can say i'm african and i have a history much longer than the new. what do you have? so war has shaped my sense of who i am. and i came to the united states because there was a revolution in my country, and here's another conflict that has shaped me. and the reason i laugh is that i think that ethiopians, i'm not unique. we are, we've been shaped by the conflicts that have made this country by the conquests that have been that have broadened, developed its borders. we have been shaped by this. you can, i can go to a baby shower and i can go to a wedding and you know, very so somebody is going to say, we beat those are tyrants. you know, in the glorious moment we'll have more of our lab. and that's a joke. but it's not really saying i reshape the laughter because on the continent

of africa, ethiopians are very proud that they beat back the colonialists and they didn't hang out if you have a very long and you say times how you're acting as always when i read about what you did, in fact, back in the eighty's, let me let me to go back. it's you, but in a different way, this is mr. tony, and she's wondering if the way that you, that you wrangle history is helpful to how we understand it. now, he's mr. one, and i want to stack by thinking you for writing these 2 brilliant books that i have read and completely loved. i think the shadow king is an exceptional story. it's an exceptional retelling of history, and i absolutely love the way you have honored his women at war. you have given them a voice you have given their body and you have given them a platform for their stories to be hard and to be remembered. i wanted to ask,

how do you think the shadow king has influenced or has shaped the way? if you can see any talents and now remember the 193-521-0042 extension 1 of the patients? that's good. thank you. i, i realized well 1st, let me speak from the italian aspect of this. this is not something that was taught and readily spoken of in italy. this is a history that most italians don't know unless they have actively sought it. when those soldiers came back from ethiopia, when they came back from east africa, a friend of mine who's an italian told me in her family when her relatives came back. nobody spoke of it. she said, ethiopia is, was a wall, is a wall in our family. no one speaks of it now. so the book, my book will be published in the spring of 2021 in italy. i'm very interested to

see the congress stations that happen, but it's not a, it's not something that is readily spoken of. but there are other writers in italy, italians who are working and who have written on this history go is another, is one of them. gabriela, good monday is another one. friday is another one, and they're working on this history. so i'm joining a group of, ironically, women who are doing this on the ethiopian side. i think that everyone knew the history of the victory. but i am not sure how many people really understood the daily realities of living under occupation, living under a war, the daily occurrences, interactions between italians and east africans,

but also libyans who came into east africa as ascii. i don't know how detailed that information, how that detailed information was available in ethiopia. i really had to do research to find out i. i also realize the villagers kept their own histories alive by repeating the stories of what happened in their specific areas and their regions. but those stories did not often get out to the masses to become history. we basically have a book club happening on you tube right now. there are so many questions. i am going to fire the questions at you, and you are going to see my answers backs and we don't know. what are you ready for lion of judah. i love this muslim, do you think ethiopian women are still in the shadow of political power in modern ethiopian politics?

i think, you know, i think ethiopian women have been present in politics for a very long time. we can think of leading men to war in the 1st conflict with italy, empresses, ody, too. we have had women in positions of power, but my concern has been those people who are born in prayer or families. they were born to different groups of different ethnicities. different regions and ignored because of who they were, how have we, how have we paid attention to them? how have we given them? support however, we empowered them and my concern is with those women, particularly who don't always have the means to be noticed and to be heard. and i remember this is the speed round and we have hundreds of people in our virtual

grazing where you don't want sex. sorry, i wasn't here. yeah. all right, next on it goes as next. this one's from marvin marvin, he's waiting. what do you think drove those women to fight for their country, even when they were still say, so with being subjugated, subjugated to the harshness of the patriarchy in ethiopia? the question, this is a very fast square, the very fast answer is they saw war as an opportunity to change their station in life. they were fighting not just for their country, but for themselves as well through uneek. thank you for your courage and determination to tell the story of how you present facts, dates, and sense and violence from overcoming your voice revision. i mean that it's just, this is what we do as writers, everything happens in revision, write it all down and then revise. chris fine. how do you deal

with criticisms of focusing on conflicts a century ago? he said it's more current ones being that the role of we mean is so much different now. oh, i don't know if the role of women is so much different and i don't know if there has been a i don't know about criticisms about writing from the past. the past helps us understand the present. and as far as right, if you're not writing about this very moment, you're writing the past. so i writers do that. we need time and reflection on what has happened in the past. there's a quote from the shadow king, which is about the battlefield. i'm going to share that without reince and just give you a moment. you'll save for a bit of the book and a tiny little, not even a page. i get a little snippet of a page. you've got the time to find that when i read a little bit that we love you history. so this is about women being in it being a battlefield on their bodies as well as actually going to war. she's

a soldier trapped inside a barbed wire fence, but she's still at war and the battlefield is her own body. apparatchiks come to realize as a prisoner, that is where it has always been so beautiful. can you imagine how much better the show is going to get now that mothers meeting our own mother? i said, i'm not a little snippet of what even to only i had a little bit. this is when here it is. at that barbed wire fence. she just not change her breathing or stiffen her body or feeling helplessly when that same hospital reacts, open the gate and bends into her face and shouts her name until it is a hard and painful blast in her ear. instead she looks up at his face glowed with futile anger, and calmly waits for whatever comes next. because this is one thing that neither the ascii norfolk shelley nor the stupid soul doctors staring at her with a gaping mouth,

well never will ever know that she is here or would daughter of fasting and gayety feared guard of the shadow king. and she is no longer afraid of what men can do to women like her. thank you. if people don't go get them, but now they're never going to get the vote. this is identity. she's an assistant english professor and she has afan a question for you by any go ahead. african women are reclaiming the a place in history through early trade show that centers, women as principal actors in historical narratives. it's important to know that this is a far cry from another leg, actually as things fall apart, where women seem to be generally oblivious about the changes taking place around them. to date what we have seen, the historical fiction, written by african women, are female characters who are deeply aware of the forces shaping their worlds

and the impact of the air on actions on this forces. absolutely, absolutely. we have katrina we have jennifer mccombe and there is a line of women writing who are centering women. i think it's partly for the fact that we know that we have been there and we have always been there. and the stories have not been a shifting of any lens, but really just cleaning it off so that we can see what's actually been there all along. most of what's really obvious from where you choose to share your thoughts you would show is that you inspire a lot of people. let me show you what maazel did. a few hours ago, she said, i'm going to be on stream. how do you answer this question? this was the question that we asked about black in african workers, how they write,

working to reclaim their narratives. and the response goes on and on, and on a what i got from this was that people who were already doing it, they did the permission. they did this, you need inspiration. but this one phenomena was really nice. a funny artsy is the time that you came to syracuse and you help me be part of my answer. you were like, you could you say your parents a gun in which i was being clearly and weird about for some reason. and something to me just being myself was ok inspired to be full. thank you for being on the stream today. mustn't get, you know. thank you so much of the shadow. thank you to everyone who joined in. thank you. it's been a pleasure chatting to you. thank you very much. thank you. this wraps up the streams book. it's been fun. i see you next time. thanks for watching everybody. bye for now.

an invitation to bear witness to all that life office. the heidi's the loves the trials and tribulations. the unseen movements and the everyday miracles, the injustices, the defiance, the tests of character, and the closeness to witness documentaries with a delicate touch on al-jazeera, romania's, ancient forests. some of europe's most pristine. there are crucial for our society . a crucial fall battle against the climate crisis, but illegal logging by a ruthless to the mafia is destroying both the landscape and people's lives. being in the main areas all. what about violence? killing whistleblowers, amidst claims of corruption and the role of powerful multinationals. people in

power investigates, rumania of the far east, on al-jazeera. donald trump pardons his former national security advisor, michael flynn, pleaded guilty to lying in an investigation into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election cycle romney watching al-jazeera life my headquarters here in doha. also coming up morning from our dollar tributes pouring in for the argentinian football legend who's died at the age of 60 and fears of more violence in ethiopia is too great.