She responded to Mussolini's invasion of the country in 1935 by founding a weekly newspaper called the New Times and Ethiopia News, which she edited for twenty years. Her paper condemned Britain's "appeasement" of the Axis Dictators, and supported the Republican Government in the Spanish Civil War. After Mussolini's entry into the European War, on the side of Nazi Germany, she agitated against the return to Italy of her African colonies. Ever against colonialism, she clashed with the British Government in demanding the full restoration of Ethiopian independence and advocated the "reunion" of the former Italian colony of Eritrea with Ethiopia.

She raised funds for Ethiopia's first teaching hospital and wrote extensively on Ethiopian art and culture. Having moved to Addis Ababa in 1956, with her son, the author of this book, she founded a monthly journal called the Ethiopia Observer, which focused on many aspects of Ethiopian life and development. She died in 1960 and was buried with the Ethiopian Patriots, in front of Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, in the presence of the Emperor.

. . . What People say about this book . . .

Professor Richard Pankhurst has written a detailed and fascinating account of his mother's love affair with Ethiopia. One of Ethiopia's most distinguished scholars and historians, his own interest and knowledge illumine this memoir of a "great warrior and propagandist".

>> Patrick Gilkes, writer and broadcaster on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

A truly extraordinary and remarkable individual, the story of Sylvia Pankhurst stands as a human monument to the ideals of freedom and justice and fearlessness.

>> Robert A. Hill, Professor of History & Editor-in-Chief, The Marcus Garvey & UNIA Papers at UCLA

The Pankhurst love affair with Ethiopia is an extraordinary story. It started in the 1930s with the redoubtable Sylvia, from a notable family of feminists, and is being carried on by her grand-children. Sylvia was caught up in the Ethiopian struggle for independence against Fascist Italy. Her son Richard tells the story of this remarkable life, drawing extensively on both published and unpublished materials. Sylvia Pankhurst is a figure who ought to be known by all Ethiopianists.

>> Donald Crummey, Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign