July 20, 2019
Interview with Carol Pineau
“I arrived in Eritrea thinking I knew a whole lot about Africa”
by Billion Temesghen | Carol Pineau is an American journalist who has worked in Africa for many years representing the biggest news agencies of the world. Her first visit in Eritrea impacted her profession the most as she describes the Eritrean experience as a process of unlearning the ‘white savior responsibility’. Her award-winning film full-length documentary was a ground breaking biopic that changed the African narrative. Carol Pineau says it all came from Eritrea. How come?
You were in Eritrea in the late 1990s.
Correct. I reported 1999-2000 at the height of the border war. I was one of the two journalists who were living here. And, of course, with the difficulty of getting access in to Eritrea because all of the airlines had been shut down, it was very difficult for a journalist to come and so the story was being told almost entirely from the Ethiopian side. Therefore, telling the Eritrean story is something that has been very important to me.
