num_pages: 328
description: In the strict dictatorship of Eritrea a young reporter co-founds the first independent newspaper publishes stories that anger the president and then has to escape to save his life and his loved ones.An idealistic journalist with a young family starts the first independent newspaper in the notorious police state of Eritrea  one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. When the paper is shut down he flees arrest and begins a dangerous journey to freedom first across a desert at night into Sudan pursued by Eritrean secret police then into secret safe houses in Kenya. With the help of the United Nations he finds sanctuary in Canada  a place he knows nothing about. Meanwhile his wife and young children are stuck back home in constant danger of reprisal. Berhanes story is one of bravery amid complicated international geopolitics of spies guns and betrayal and  ultimately  of triumph and the piecing together of family in a cold new country.
language: None
title: The Burden of Exile: A Banned Journalist's Flight from Dictatorship
publisher: Dundurn Press