With the nomination of Black Foam (2018), Jabir became the first Eritrean novelist to be longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
[1] Jaber’s literary work deals with the past and present of Eritrea, its diaspora and the wider Horn of Africa.
His novel Black Foam, based on real events, tells the fictional story of a group of Ethiopian Jews, who emigrate to Israel to escape poverty and in search of a better life.
[2] Jaber lives in Doha, Qatar, and works as a journalist for Al Jazeera.
In Eritrea, we are still living outside history, enslaved to an oppressive regime in various forms, and all of this is considered the meaning of “homeland,” which is innocent.