Three Eritrean Plays meets the traditional expectations of good drama with strong plots, engaging characters, incisive language and inventive settings, yet with telltale characteristics of the Eritrean life experience. Fanciful in A Village Dream, brutal in The Snare, and intensely romantic in Aster, these plays by three of Eritrea's greatest contemporary writers - Mesgun Zerai, Esaias Tseggai, and Solomon Drar - emerge from a culture that, facing defeat in the middle of its 30-year war for independence, made a conscious, strategic decision: develop your drama and all of your arts, and you will gain not only your nation but your soul.