The Conscript depicts, with irony and controlled anger, the staggering experiences of the Eritrean ascari, soldiers conscripted to fight in Libya by the Italian colonial army against the nationalist Libyan forces fighting for their freedom from Italy’s colonial rule. The novel’s expressive language is just as distinct as its thematic quality. The moving descriptions of Lybia awe the reader with mesmerizing images, picturing in the reader’s mind its vast desert sands, oases and horsemen. Anticipating midcentury thinkers Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire, Hailu paints a devastating portrait of Italian colonialism. Some of the most poignant passages of the novel include the awakening of the novel’s hero, Tuquabo, to his ironic predicament of being both under colonial rule and the instrument of suppressing the colonized Libyans. The Conscript is a beautifully told, fiercely yet complexly anti-colonial novel. Imperialism is mostcertainly a cruel villain, but what's interesting is how far Hailu implies that Tigrinya traditions and ideologies particularly of masculinity and war play into the hands of the colonials.