The fight for independence grounded artists in a common struggle that was also painfully personal. War, sweeping, historical, and private, all at once, relentlessly and ruthlessly unifies. It also individualizes. Courage, loss, sacrifice, honor, horror, bondage are universal themes. But there is no way of satisfactorly addressing them without speaking in personal tones.
Concepts take on shape in war.
They become a solider from this town, a mother from that village, a hamlet barely on the map. Added to this advantage, Eritrea's oral tradition makes a good poet almost inevitably destined to be a star by making him or her a necessity. An oral society cannot afford to push aside poets and storytellers. Because Eritrean life has yet to undergo the coming specialization, the poet is able to labor earnestly in the mainstream. It is a paradox that oral cultures, where literacy rates are lower, depend more on what are considered literary figures.