Period, History, and The Literary Art: Historicizing Amharic Novels

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/256838631
Period, History, and the Literary Art: Historicizing Amharic Novels
Article in Northeast African Studies · July 2013

DOI: 10.14321/nortafristud.13.1.0019
CITATION READS
1 4,638
1 author:
Tewodros Gebre
Addis Ababa University
23 PUBLICATIONS 4 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
All content following this page was uploaded by Tewodros Gebre on 27 May 2014.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Period, History, and the Literary Art: Historicizing Amharic Novels
Tewodros Gebre
Northeast African Studies, Volume 13, Number 1, 2013 (New Series),

pp. 19-51 (Article)
Published by Michigan State University Press

DOI: 10.1353/nas.2013.0006
For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nas/summary/v013/13.1.gebre.html
Access provided by Addis Ababa University (21 Sep 2013 02:11 GMT)
Period, History, and the Literary Art:
Historicizing Amharic Novels
TEWODROS GEBRE, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
ABSTRACT
The period between 1960 (the failed coup) and 1974 (the successful military
takeover of power), was a momentous segment of contemporary Ethiopian
history. It was an era teeming with social unrest among various social classes and
strata of society. It is a very concentrated period full of accidents and coinci-
dences that were melodramatic and absurd, and which mostly ended tragically.
This made it particularly suitable for Ethiopian literary art. The most esteemed
works of art in Amharic literature and source of incitement even for the present
academia are products of this period—Fəqər əskä mäqabər, YäTéwodros ənba,
Adäfrəs, Ke'admas bashaggär, and Létum aynägalləñ. This article argues that
these novels are highly affected by the prevailing spirit of their time—the mood of
confusion, ambivalence, fragmentation, and the spirit of anarchy and nihilism.
The novels, like other cultural products and activities, were initiated by the past,
but they employed it to distill the abstract spirit of the times that were unnoticed
by their society. They attempted to shape the era itself. This article’s focus is not
solely the “historicity of texts.” History here is not simply a backdrop against
which the literary works are to be viewed but itself constituent of the text,
inscribed in the text as one component.
Northeast African Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2013, pp. 19–52. ISSN 0740-9133.
© 2013 Michigan State University Board of Trustees. All rights reserved.
20 ▪ Tewodros Gebre
1. Background
The age already in the past is in fact constituted in every respect as a

text.
—Derrida, Of Grammatology1
When I received an invitation in December 2010 to contribute to this

journal, I set myself to write on “The State of Non-Normative Sexuality in
Modern Amharic Literature.” I was planning to write on this topic for quite
some time, and I could not have a more opportune moment. At the very
same time, Ethiopians of all walks of life were preoccupied with two thorny
issues in their recent history and politics.
One was occasioned by the 50th anniversary of the abortive coup d’état
of December 1960. This was the first military coup in sub-Saharan Africa,
which claimed the lives of dozens of high-ranking government officials from
both sides. In spite of being a bloody incident, it was long regarded as part
of the revolutionary struggle that finally overthrew the imperial regime in
1974. There were renewed debates and reappraisals of the nature and
impact of this coup.
The second issue was regarding the death sentence passed by the
Supreme Court on senior officials of the former military government
(1974 –1991). Charged with “genocide” for summarily executing 59 minis-
ters and notables of the imperial regime, organizing and conducting the
so-called Red Terror (qäy shəbər) massacre, and allegedly attempting to
exterminate a particular ethnic group, their case had been dragging for the
last two decades. It was not the capital punishment per se that took much
public attention. What surprised many, I believe, is the initiative of Ethio-
pian religious leaders for a state pardon, attempting to mitigate the death
sentence into life imprisonment.
There are striking parallels between the failed military coup (1960) and
the successful military takeover of power (1974). However, so much
escapes the attention of even the most perceptive observers of the period.
Conventional wisdom holds that the era demarcated by these events was the
most formative and melodramatic of recent Ethiopian history. It was a
period in which archaic political structures, ideologies, and social relations
were replaced by new ones through violence and revolution; a period in
which the hopes and aspirations of the masses were crushed on the bedrock
of anarchy and bloodshed.
Period, History, and the Literary Art ▪ 21
Ethiopia, during the final decades of the imperial regime, had

adopted some trappings of modernity like a constitution, parliament,
mass media, ministries, courts, and various institutions of social ser-
vices. The state attempted to represent the nation by ideology, symbols,
and ceremonies drawing from the cultural legacies of the historic nation.
The “secular” and popular history of Ethiopia was born as a glorification
of its civilization, state continuity, distinctiveness, sovereignty, and the
nation’s messianic destiny and pride. This was a novel and uplifting
experiment to the country.
Nevertheless, the irreversible changes towards modernity resulted in
the creation of new social classes and relations and new demands for
empowerment. Government reforms were very much conservative to the
taste of a nascent generation of intellectuals and men in uniform. The hope
of national revival in the afterglow of liberation from Italian occupation
(1941) was gradually dampened by rising discontent and pessimism. In
many ways, the late 1950s marked the high tide of the imperial regime. The
following decade witnessed the radicalization and drift of Ethiopian society
into a whirlpool of revolutionary upheaval. The period between the bloody
military coup and the demise of the monarchy was one extremely kaleido-
scopic and formative era of our times.
A period full of such portentous temperaments seemed particularly
suitable for literary art. For example, the gems of Amharic (read Ethio-
pian) literature, which due to their refreshing originality of styles and
excellence are the text books of Ethiopian higher institutions, were all
produced in this era: Fəqər əskä mäqabər (1966), YäTéwodros ənba
(1966), Adäfrəs (1970), Ke'admas bashaggär (1970), and Létum aynägalləñ
(2007) (literally translated as “love unto death,” “Tewodros’s tear/
agony,” “trouble maker,” “beyond the horizon,” and “the night never
ends for me,” respectively). 2 In spite of the difference in settings, subject
matter, and techniques, these works have evident proximity in ideology,
spirit, and in the moods and emotions they create in the reader. They are
permeated by existentialist ideology where ignorance is blended with
knowledge, the former stronger; death juxtaposed with life, death
reigns; and despair is mixed with hope, despair dominates. Always
constricted by existential dilemmas, they invariably ended up in disillu-
sionment, futility, alienation, guilty conscience, and punishment. What
is more, and particularly in the last three novels, de-romanticizing the
“national imagery” of Ethiopia is a common motif. The paradox is,

though these pieces are fruits of an allegedly unique and influential age,
they are seldom studied in juxtaposition to the period itself.
I strongly believe that any literary text is directly involved in
history. In other words, a literary text shapes and is shaped by the
historical contexts of its time. It cannot be viewed separately from the
society that produced it. My main argument is that the above novels
were influenced by the spirit of their time, and in turn they vigorously
attempted to shape the era itself. They are the most eloquent mouth-
pieces of their time. Some like Adäfrəs are filled with prophetic voices,
wherein the traditional boundaries between fact and fiction blur. This
article is an attempt to bring out the zeitgeist—the ideas and spirit of the
time—from the “facts” of history as well as the literary narratives and
representations. My concern is not solely, in Louis Montrose’s most
famous dictum, “the historicity of texts,” but rather an attempt to shed
light on “the textuality of history” 3 itself and the complex interface
which I presume exists between them. Furthermore, I regard history not
as a closed chapter bound by objective facts but open to rewriting
through interpretation. As Greenblatt pointed out, “[h]istory cannot be
divorced from textuality, and all texts can be compelled to confront the
crisis of undecidability revealed in the literary text.” 4 This article is,
therefore, grounded in this line of interpretative strategy. In order to
show this properly, I read the novels in association with the non-literary
“discursive practices” of the time, like for example, the popular slogans
of the underground press.
2. The Textuality of History
History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the

contrary, is the recital of facts represented as fiction.
—Voltaire5
[H]istories ought never to be read as unambiguous signs of the

events they report, but rather as symbolic structures, extended
metaphors, that “liken” the events reported in them to some form
with which we have already become familiar in our literary culture.
—Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse6
[T]he pace of the Revolution was “faster than my writing,” and the
Revolution was becoming “more fictitious than my fiction”
—Dagnachew Worku in Reidulf K. Molvaer, Black Lions7
The December 1960 abortive coup (known in Amharic as yä'tahəsas

gərgər) was orchestrated by Brigadier-General Mangestu Neway, the then
commander of the Imperial Bodyguard, and his brother Garmame Neway, a
Cambridge University political science graduate. Colonel Warqenah
Gabyyahu, Chief (and trusted protégé) of the Emperor’s Special Security,
and Brigadier General Tsegge Dibbu Police Commissioner also instigated
the coup. Though it failed due to organizational inadequacies and lack of
clear orientation, it could be regarded as a paradigmatic incident in the
history of modern Ethiopia. Instead of establishing a constitutional monar-
chy or even a vague republic, this event discredited the monarchy’s divine
right and set the agenda for the upcoming popular uprising of 1974. After
the attempt, Mangestu allegedly said “Ethiopia shall never be the same
again”;8 “Once we start the fire, it will burn on by itself.”9 This incident
became a clarion call for the spread of social unrest among students,
soldiers, and peasants. Demands for basic human rights, land reform, ethnic
and nationalities issues were ultimately radicalized into nothing less than
the overthrow of the entire system itself.
Though limited in its initial political objectives, yä'tahəsas gərgər is
considered by many as the harbinger of revolution and a premonition for
the demise of imperial rule. Although I do not object to this fact, the
extremities of the leaders’ measures would nevertheless make this coup as
much a portent for the ordeal, butchery, and heinous blemish of the recent
history of the nation: the cold-blooded murder of Emperor Hayla-Selasse I
and 59 of the prominent officials of the regime, the Red Terror–White
Terror carnage, and ultimately the most violent and destructive civil war in
the continent.
None of the ringleaders of the 1960 coup survived for long or were
spared. Garmame Neway and Warqenah Gabyyahu committed suicide.
Tsegge Dibbu was killed in the shootout, and Mangestu Neway was hanged
on the scaffold. The emperor’s intention, which was followed by a severe
measure, seemed to act as a deterrent to future conspiracies. The intensity
of the recriminations was evident in the ritual sacrilege against the dead
bodies of the conspirators. The corpses of Garmame, Warqenah, and other
compatriots were hanged publicly in broad daylight. Tsegge Dibbu’s was

tied behind a vehicle and dragged through the dusty streets of Addis
Ababa.10 Mangestu Neway, who briefly survived to find out the sentiment
that the coup stirred among University College students, consoled himself
by uttering the following last words, “I got to tell the others that the seed we
set has taken root.”11 What he probably could not have known was that the
seeds would later turn out to be bitter and mortal.
Let us ignore for a moment the spontaneity of the coup and concern
ourselves with its conclusion. When they realized that their attempt had
failed, the Ethiopian Decembrists fled after recklessly massacring 15 digni-
taries and ministers whom they had herded on the pretext of their security.
Among the victims of this cold-blooded spree were the great patriot ras
Abbaba Aragay and the famous General Mulugeta Buli whom the Decem-
brists had only recently nominated as état-major.12
Were these personalities Christus Victors of “the generation”—martyr-
messiahs—who, owing to the pain they received and the sacrifices they
made, would reign over its world and set it free? That is how “the
generation” appeared to have received them, as we might surmise both
from open iconizing of the perpetrators and tacit ignorance of their mis-
deeds. I, member of a latter generation, could not help but challenge the
beliefs of the revolutionary generation and the efficacy of its heroes.
Here, a matter of great interest for me, is the fact that the instigators of
the massacre were not the military officers Mangestu Neway, Tsegge Dibbu,
or Warqenah Gabyyahu. It was rather the civilian scholar Garmame Ne-
way,13 whom historians dubbed as “the coup’s intellectual leader.” 14 This is
a serious issue, because Garmame Neway “represented a bridge—a rather
solitary bridge, we should add— between the pre-war intellectuals and the
student radicals of the 1960s and 1970s.”15
Did the revolutionary generation criticize this deed at the time? Did it
even ask “why”? No, I do not think so. Some feeble voices who demanded
moderation and objectivity were crushed under the overwhelming weight
of errant revolutionarism. “The generation” rather bestowed on the coup
makers the divinity it had robbed from the emperor. This fact, in my
considered opinion, not only deprived the radical generation of the faculty
of rational criticism and enquiry, but also blessed the deed of the coup
makers as a sacred act. Ultimately, it walked a mile along the same path,
because sacrality is a spiritual legacy that admits of no appeal. The ultimate
degeneration of the Ethiopian Students Movement (ESM) into warring

camps is an abiding tribute to this fact.16
To elaborate my point, I will quote some of the popular slogans of the
underground press that Bahru Zewde had identified as being widespread in
the aftermath of the coup.17
1. “The martyrs of December are not dead, they are alive!”

2. “There is no redemption without blood!”
3. “To submit for despotic rule is a sin, while to rebel against despots
is a sacred deed!”
As the slogans are framed in religious diction and tone, they beg for
mythological or otherwise theological explication. If we closely trace the
image embedded in every slogan, what we encounter is a mystical being
with divine qualities. A being that spills its blood for its people and, by
virtue of this sacrifice, redeems the world. A demigod that becomes the
ultimate reference for its followers—to emulate its deed becomes “sacred”;
to deviate from its path would be “sinful.” Structurally, this kind of
mystification transforms opponents (the aristocracy and nobility who were
the so-called reactionaries) into demonic enemies. As its logical outcome,
whatever measures taken over the aged aristocrats, or any real or imagined
opponent for that matter, would be counted as Divine Justice. As succinctly
observed by Walter Benjamin, “[t]he Messiah comes not only as the
redeemer, he comes as the subduer of Antichrist.”18 I do not think the
upshot of this kind of delusion would have only been the phantasmagoric.
Rather, it was one with far-reaching sociocultural and ideological ramifica-
tions.
Let us look at the cultural background of the society. Primarily,
murdering the elderly who willingly surrendered should not by any cultural
standard make the perpetrators heroes, nor should it be a heroic deed. The
best illustration we can produce is the case of the historic figure Emperor
Tewodros II (r. 1855–1868) who in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s (in some
cases till today) was colorfully celebrated as the national hero. 19 Tewodros
is regarded as an architect of national unity, “trendsetter” of modernization,
and symbol of national pride par excellence. He was also an epitome of rising
from a humble background, “rising from the dust,” as he himself stated. 20
What singles out Tewodros is not his ideal, or his courageousness, or his
unblemished life. While in the throes of despair and disillusionment, due to
the death of his beloved ones and betrayal by his trusted followers, the
emperor had passed some gruesome punishments over his opponents and
subjects. What rather raises Tewodros a notch above mortals is the manner
in which he concluded the entire drama of his life at Mäqdäla.21 At the very
moment he stood on the unknown boundary between life and death,
Tewodros did not kill the prisoners under his power. He set them free,
admitting that his well-intended endeavors had so far been enough punish-
ment to his people. He thought that by killing the prisoners he would expose
his people to reprisals by foreigners.22 Tewodros symbolically “defeated”
General Napier, the British general who came to capture him, by commit-
ting suicide. Indeed, a true hero does not lose sight of his ultimate goal,
which is the good of his “countrymen” rather than his own. Among other
things, this magnanimity is one of the defining components in Tewodros’s
heroic endeavor, which is why, the mythic-legendry Tewodros is a trans-
historical figure who is a measure of heroism.
Since the magnanimous heroism of Tewodros and his place in the
hearts and minds of generations of Ethiopians left no room for the Neway
brothers, the 1974 Ethiopian revolution had no single hero with Tewodros’s
stature. Therefore, to indiscriminately massacre the symbols of patriotism
and self-made personality is to diminish the greater national symbol. It is
only stark nihilism and anarchism that transform assassins into heroes. If
anyone insists on their heroism, it might be a damaged heroism. Metaphor-
ically speaking, a damage that is not treated and handled properly develops
into a malignant disease. Due to the so-called “true heirs of the rebels” 23
failure to criticize and interrogate the injustice of the bloody coup, their
lapse also remained contaminated and their legacy bloodstained.
The Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) who allegedly “hijacked” the
popular revolution of 1974 and “usurped” power as the därg (committee)
renewed this legacy by trailing the footsteps of their predecessors. History
sometimes repeats itself so spectacularly.24 On the fateful night of Saturday
23 November 1974, the därg massacred 59 former imperial officials whom
they had enticed and detained. Let me borrow Paul Henze’s expression, “in
a single night, the Ethiopian revolution turned bloody. Blood never ceased
to flow for the next 17 years.”25 And the next, we might add. This is the
whole picture of the age. The murder of the old by the young, the hanging
of corpses, dragging of bodies on the streets, Bloody Saturday, and colorful
terrors inundated the nation’s imaginary. The above novels were written in
such an era that was framed in blood and gore. How could the “generation”
break the manacles of errant revolutionarism and bloodthirstiness?
3. The Zeitgeist in the Novels—The Novels in the Zeitgeist
The role of literature is to say what a period thinks of itself.

— Pierre Macherey, The Object of Literature26
A cursory glance at the pattern of the novels would suffice to sense the
dominant spirit of the period. In all the above works, bright scenes darken,
and peaceful dreams turn into horrifying nightmares. Hope and despair, life
and death are two faces of the same discourse. The reader does not even
need to delve into the book but will be confronted with this feeling at the
very gate. This is especially evident in Fəqər əskä mäqabər, YäTéwodros ənba,
and Adäfrəs, which represent the mood by their title and covers. “Fəqər əskä
mäqabər” conjoins love and grave. “YäTéwodros ənba” garbs a legendary
hero with “feminine” tears. The very term “adäfrəs” suggests disturbance
and chaos. Although the picture on the front cover of Adäfrəs radiates light
and hope by depicting a disheveled young man lecturing to a crowd of
“mothers” and “fathers” under an oak tree, one is confronted with a young
boy’s corpse on the back cover. The corpse is being escorted to the grave by
his “fathers” and “mothers.” People are crying, shouting, mourning, and
priests are conducting service. The latter scene takes away the light and
hope promised at the beginning. The optimistic reader would be disillu-
sioned right at the entrance. In YäTéwodros ənba, the first picture we come
across is the famous Sebastopol cannon, which symbolizes King Tewodros’s
vision, hauled by soldiers up the steep slope of the Mäqdäla Mountain. In
the second picture, Mäqdäla amba (plateau), which is selected as a sanctu-
ary for the nation’s historical and cultural heritage, is set ablaze. In Chapter
One, the Fasil Castle is washed over by sunshine on a Sunday dawn (for
rebirth?). In Chapter Eight, which is the end of the novel, death is waiting
leaning on its spear and shield.
The incident in Abera’s house in the introduction of Ke'admas bashaggär
is like a canvas of the spirit and predicament of the time.27 The novel
portrays a huge, soundless radiogram that “looks like a coffin,” a painting
“bereft of beauty” for there is no light, golden curtains hemmed in black
fabric, and a burgundy color of couches and a carpet “which looked like a
stained blood.” Abera’s house is full of expensive objects that equally signify
life and death. Metaphorically, he could overcome death by turning on the
light and playing the radiogram. The music overcomes death—which is
symbolized by the coffin—and the light restores the beauty of the painting;
the blood starts to wash away and the curtains begin to radiate gold. But he
could not do this. All he did was stand in the middle and mutter: “Who am
I? What am I? A thing, and for that matter a worthless rotten thing.”28 Death
conquers the house. Ato Abate sheds his own and Hailemariam’s blood. The
coffin becomes an abode for his mother, brother, and friend. The curtains
separate the dead from “the living.” It is plausible to think of Abera’s
house, which is finally converted into prison, as representing the coun-
try; whereas Abera and others signify the generation that carried life and
death, and hope and despair. This, therefore, is how the subtle spirit of
the period appears.
Death is a dominant incident in the novels, and dying characters are

given decisive roles. In all the novels, except Létum aynägalləñ, sudden and
untimely deaths disturb the lives of the living characters by taking away
their meaning of life, throwing them into the depths of despair, and pushing
them into absolute alienation. In some cases, the story begins by guiding
one along the proper path of life and ends with tragic irony. A good example
of this kind of ending could be the fate of Bezabih, the main character of
Fəqər əskä mäqabər. Bezabih was entrapped by freedom, which he thought
was gained by the death of his parents. He did not get to enjoy it for long. He
endures the same horrible fate as his parents.
The fate of at least one character from each novel is also exile. This
“exile” is a prison that could be manifested either as a monastery, a
jailhouse, or a brothel. In Fəqər əskä mäqabər, one of the main characters,
Seble, disapproves of her family’s matchmaking and on the eve of her
wedding runs away to meet Bezabih, her illicit lover, in Addis. Her parents,
who are the novel’s antagonistic forces, suffer a mortal accident while
searching for her. The invited guests to the wedding attend the parents’
funeral (were life and death sheltered under one roof?). On a daring journey
to find Bezabih, Seble finds him beaten to death by robbers. Before he passes
away on her hand, however, she receives communion with him. Seble
suffers heartbreak after this calamity and also blames herself for the fate of
her family. She completely separates herself from the world and lives with
Bezabih’s coffin in a crypt.
In Ke'admas bashaggär, Abera’s act of murder cost him the life of his
mother, brother, and friend. In Adäfrəs, the Addis Ababa University student,
Adäfrəs, who was on a national literacy service, was stoned to death while
attempting to make peace between student protesters and soldiers. The
other character in the novel, Tsione, who signifies traditional Ethiopia, is in
bereavement due to loss of this educated young man whom she believed
was her destiny. Therefore, she retreated to a monastery. The fate of Roman,
another female character in Adäfrəs who symbolized modern Ethiopia,
became prostitution. In YäTéwodros ənba, while digging a hole for
Tewodros, däbtära Aklilu dug his own grave and buried himself. The general
atmosphere in all the novels is similar to these scenes. The novels end up
abandoning the characters in darkness.
Unlike the other novels, the author in Létum aynägalləñ consciously
employs a psychoanalytic frame to emphasize the characters’ inner lives,
rather than articulating their physiological life/death. Though their death is
not something we can see, the characters are driven by self-destructive
desire. Therefore, the novel’s constant setting—a brothel— could be read
parallel to the monastery and jail. This will be discussed later.
Most deaths in the novels are sudden, swift, and violent such as being
gunned down, stoned, or thrown into a pit. The swiftness, unpredictability,
and overwhelming presence of death seem to reveal the characters’ frailty.
By implication, it also suggests the absurdity of life. This, however, does not
mean that violent death was rendered to be un-heroic. Absolutely not! If
violent death occurred as voluntary self-sacrifice and self-purification, then
it was one way of earning honor and grace. Nevertheless, none of the dying
characters in the novels performed an immortal deed. Theirs was not a
visionary death that was self-resurrecting or one that was a model for
others’ dreams. On the contrary, their death was heartbreaking for the
living. Pushing the argument further, it also could be argued that not one of
the living characters was portrayed to be visionary. I also contend that there
was complete absence of heroic representation. All the novels are shrouded
with darkness and interminable grief, depriving the characters the radiance
after the gloom. That is why some of the characters end up in a monastery,
prison, or brothel. In the end, the novels themselves turn into death
stations—monasteries, jails, and brothels—instead of becoming illumina-
tions of hope or vision.
Along the line of the above argument, the portrayal of YäTéwodros
ənba’s main character, King Tewodros II, was also contentious. One of the
reasons that the historical-legendary Tewodros became a frequent motif in
Amharic literature was his defiant and heroic death. Nevertheless, we do
not find this kind of heroism in this novel. The destruction of Gondar, the
massacre of civilians, and the decadence of human beings is more highly
painted than the battle between “men,” and the victory and death of
“heroes.” I argue that the novel’s major theme emanates from such destruc-
tive and bloody incidents.
Although Tewodros’s death is the introductory event of YäTéwodros
ənba, the story is narrated in flashbacks and reconstructed chronologically
in the reader’s mind. Even though the opening scene of Mäqdäla remains in
the reader’s mind until the end of the story, the reader falls short of a
climactic urge to reach Mäqdäla, since Tewodros’s demise neglects a
cathartic effect. In this novel, Tewodros is a failed hero, or, to put it lightly,
he is an unfinished hero. The emotions that run through Tewodros’ mind at
the end of the story—anger, regret, despair, guilt—are results of this
challenge. All these feelings have weakened him, and, hence, he could not
cleanse his anguish through his own death. As Tewodros himself conveys, as
däbtära Aklilu confirms, and as the reader witnesses, the time for the
fictional Tewodros had come and gone long before Mäqdäla. The irony is
that nobody, not even his lifetime antagonist däbtära Aklilu, benefits from
Tewodros’s downfall.
The antagonism between the fictional-historical Tewodros and däbtära
Aklilu started during childhood when the former accidentally hit the latter
with a hockey ball that caused däbtära Aklilu’s sterility. Aklilu carried this
hatred in his bosom and devoted his entire life to seeking revenge for his
irreversible wound. To one’s surprise, everything worked to what he
wanted: the king suffered personal losses, he was separated from his
subjects and his soldiers, and the glory and empire slipped from his grip. It
was during this waning hour that Aklilu, for the first time, saw Tewodros
“weeping like an ordinary man.” This encounter forced him on a journey of
soul-searching, self-discovery, and self-realization. It made him realize how
vain his lifetime struggle was and how senseless his entire life had been. He,
therefore, entreats Tewodros to finish him by the sword. Tewodros, how-

ever, did not want to make Aklilu a martyr, and he, on the contrary,
“orders” Aklilu to tell the people that “Tewodros lived in his dream and died
in his dream.”29 This realization caused total paralysis of Aklilu’s sprit. He
devoted his remaining life to telling and writing stories of Tewodros to the
extent that he forgot hearing “the order” from Tewodros. His voice merges
with Tewodros. Tewodros’s words become his own.
Because it’s been more than four years since he hid himself in a cave,
many of the stories were new to his ears . . . his mind travels back in
time. “Tewodros failed before Maqdala,” he said. Again, he posed for a
while. “I was one of them who pushed and pushed him to his fall . . .
my son could you bring me parchment and reed pen” he asked. “This
is one of the confessions” he said in his thoughts “his story should be
told” he has never told this before to anyone.30
The last gloomy scene in Fəqər əskä mäqabər is Seble’s life as a nun in a
crypt. After 12 long years in this place, she accidently meets her uncle gudu
Kassa “the mad one.” She is very much aged—“her beauty mark that made
her look unique has disappeared”31—and her uncle barely recognizes her.
After a long sorrowful feeling and with tears in his eyes, he asks her
hesitantly:
“Whatever happened is in the past. You cannot reverse what has

happened! Why did you become a nun?”
“What could I do?”
“How could you say that? What would others do? One who lost a
loved one grieves but has there been anyone who followed that person
to the grave?”
“Well I also grieved but did not die!” she said with a smirk.
“For the likes of you, becoming a nun is dying!” he said hoarsely.
(Emphasis added)32
Gudu Kassa, a defrocked priest who in the past had been a ritual master
of the church, pointed out exactly how monasticism was placed in this
context–a solitary death. This absurd death could be manifested in three
ways. The first one was through her communion with Bezabih. The second
was through the two coffins in the crypt; one of Bezabih and the other
empty, which was lying in the room. The third was through her (“the
living”) day to day interaction with the dead. Communion and coffins are
symbols that are interlaced. In religious terms, communion is a sacrament
that eternally binds a man and a woman—such as the two coffins that lay
beside each other. Through the communion, Bezabih draws life from Seble
and through the coffin she receives death from him. Therefore, both the
husband and wife achieve identical ontological status; they interact daily.
Her language, too, confirms this reality. After 12 years, she does not address
his corpse either as “the body” or “his body,” but rather calls it by name, as
if Bezabih was alive. The body is Bezabih himself, and she is living her death
with him. In other words, death becomes a life experience. That is why gudu
Kassa inquired “[o]ne who lost a loved one grieves but has there been
anyone who followed that person to the grave?”33 Let me quote from the
novel to show this serious existential issue.
“Please don’t cry Aya Kassa. I am living happily! It is you who said
that I’ve changed but I don’t even feel the change. You see, even if it is
daily, I have never missed to clean Bezabih’s bed and put him to sleep.
So when I see him daily, I feel like he is alive and living together with
me, which makes me so happy.
“How?” Gudu Kassa said shocked.
“Let me show you Bezabih [she did not say Bezabih’s corpse!]?”
Gudu Kassa, doubting Seble’s health stared at her silently.
Then she stood up, lighted a candle and opened a box covered with
a carpet full of flower designs: “Here he is!” she said. The tomb is built
with stone and then cemented. The floor and the walls are nicely
polished with ash and looks like a well-kept house and not a crypt. In
there, you see two coffins: one covered with a white cloth made of
cotton on the right and the other without any cover on the left. . . .
“Bezabih is the one who is wearing a white cloth.” she said
“Who is without cover?”
“Who is not wearing . . . You guess,” She said with a smile.
“Whose is it?”
“You can’t guess? It is mine!”
Gudu Kassa started to cry his eyes out.
“Don’t cry! I didn’t show you Bezabih to cry!” 34 (Emphasis mine.)
Although, due to the narrative tradition, Adäfrəs does not show the end
of Tsione in a similar approach as Seble, it foreshadows her fate symboli-
cally. Right before she left to become a monk, she attended Adäfrəs’ funeral,
during which she was wearing a long and old dress with a very old cultural
belt that made her look very aged, to the extent that her longtime friend
Gorfu had difficulty identifying her.35 After the loss of her beloved, Tsione
also retreated to a convent and became alienated, dehumanized, and
physically disfigured, and could not be recognized as “Tsione.”
As discussed above, the novels conveyed death-initiated monasticism

that is related to despair, disillusionment, guilt feeling, punishment, and
particularly imprisonment. The imprisonment that follows someone’s death
also existed before death. The first imprisonment, unlike the second, is
imposed by others. Seble was a “slave” to her parent’s pride. A hockey ball
that was thrown by Tewodros fortuitously caused Aklilu’s sterility. Tsione
was a “colony” of her mother wäyzäro Asegash (balabbat), and the cleric aba
Addisse reigned over her world.
The characters are fated for lifetime exile and are portrayed as hopeless.
Seble’s, Aklilu’s, and Tsione’s retreat is induced by their hatred for life and
not by any divine call or religious zeal. For all of them, religion is a cover.
Even death was a “privilege” denied to them by strict religious morality. It
is not becoming for man to take his own life. So, powerless over their lives
and destinies, their sole alternative is leading a monastic life. 36 A monastic
life is a licensed self-destruction and a mechanism for committing suicide.
The dire circumstance of monastic life, the physiological deprivation and
ritual self-mortification is a deliberate elimination of physiological
strength. As Durkheim clearly pointed out, “refusal to take food is as
suicidal as self-destruction by a dagger or fire-arm.”37 For him, “the term
suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly, or indirectly, from
a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will
produce this result.”38 In my opinion, the main difference between forms of
suicide by monastic seclusion or by a bullet, poison, or knife is just the
duration.
Here, the characters’ suicide is not an ordinary death, for it is premed-
itated and convoluted. The characters rationalize their death by harmoniz-
ing it with the value system of their surroundings. Consequently, they
channel their feelings of despair, sadness, regret, and guilt to ritual obser-
vances like fasting, prayer, and other devotions. Their death will then turn
into institutionalized and ritualized suicide. Thus, characters like Seble who
lost hope in life, lead a long and slow death in a monastery. In short,
monasticism, at least in the context of these novels, is an outlet to a death
instinct peculiarly provided by the Church to the faithful. The jail and the
brothel are also the same. Using Althusser’s metaphor,39 three of the social
institutions in the novels have changed into an “apparatus” whereby suicide
is committed. The basic difference between them is the method used to
commit suicide. This, according to de Catanzaro, is a matter of culture. “The
method employed may be directly influenced by availability and culture.” 40
In the context of these novels, therefore, there seems to be no difference
in the role, function, and meaning of a monastery, jail, and brothel. To
further elaborate this point, let us analyze Ke'admas bashaggär and Létum
aynägalləñ separately. The driving theme in Ke'admas bashaggär is the search
for identity. In his quest for identity, Abera, the protagonist, is confronted
by two existential challenges: choice and decision. He finds it especially
difficult to choose and decide on matters of personal and social interest such
as marriage, friendship, and vocation. These interests are the three pillars
that support the flow of the entire narrative. They also provide structure to
the bipolar rivalry between the educated and uneducated, old and new,
modern and traditional.
Abera’s mother and elder brother are agents of the old and uneducated
group, whereas Abera and his best friend Hailemariam represent the new
and educated group. To the traditional generation, identity is an innate and
inheritable blessing. This, however, is not the case for the modern genera-
tion. Identity is not a matter of destiny, chance, or birthright for this group.
Rather, it is individuality’s long and arduous struggle of self-actuality,
modernity’s fantastic stamp of the realized individual. As these antithetical
values, that of the modern and the non-modern are irreconcilable, there is
a constant commotion, bickering, and fighting among the two worlds.
Hailemariam is not only a friend to Abera but a demigod who struggles
to create the latter in his own image. He is a herald who calls and prods
Abera to “find his true self.” There is not an external god in Hailemariam’s
world. He strongly believes that he is the potential god with powers over
everything in the “universe.” Searching for individuation and identity in
this world is a question of self-divinization. “Those who know their call to
life and describe their soul properly with their given ability are gods . . .
and man’s final objective in life is to be God Himself, righteousness and
heavens are symbols signifying this matter . . . till the so-called religion
comes into picture and made them beyond death!”41 It is not only through
his life principles and philosophy that he shares power with God. As
Macquarrie points out “[T]he highest reach of humanity is creativity, a
sharing in the power of God the creator.”42 Being an atheist, Hailemariam’s
role as an artist and a creator makes his adventurous journey to self-
divinization—to take God’s place and his divine character— complete.
Abera concurs with Hailemariam, at least in theory, and adheres to all his
principles. When he finds himself against these principles or fails to observe
them, then his repentance is similar to that of a religious fanatic. He even
considers Hailemariam as his measure of “right” and “wrong.”
Abera might appear to have finally decided to start his heroic journey at
Hailemariam’s prodding. Actually, he is in a tragic dilemma. Abera’s mother
worries that her lineage will not survive and her identity will wither away.
Of her two sons, one is already aging and the other is sterile. Abera could
have fulfilled her dream of becoming a grandmother; however, he appears
to prefer Hailemariam’s solitary (not to say celibate) life. Abera is tor-
mented on all sides. On the one hand, his brother and mother want him to
stick to his job, get married, and have children. On the other hand,
Hailemariam urges him to forsake everything and devote himself to paint-
ing. While stranded in this dilemma, he marries Lulit, whom Hailemariam
considers deceitful and impious.
Abera’s and Lulit’s relationship introduces three personality changes.
First, Lulit is portrayed as a vengeful woman determined to retaliate her
childhood victimization through her relationships with men. A woman who
uses her feminine beauty as a snare, she suddenly finds herself an “idol”
worshipped by men. She then calls herself “tan brown idol” and adopts a
new name that befits this new personality—Lulit. She could be paralleled
with the Lilith of Hebrew narratives.43 When Lulit asks Abera to marry her,
she is still her vengeful self. At this early stage, she appears as a femme fatale
in Abera’s heroic journey.
After her marriage to Abera, Lulit starts to change imperceptibly, and
she experiences humanism and responsibility as a mother and a wife. She
then confesses her sins to Abera and promises: “I am no more the idol I used
to be—tan brown idol.”44 She turns out to be a loving wife who is forgiving,
compassionate, caring, and ready to sacrifice herself to her husband. The

idol transforms into a light-giving spiritual guide and a guardian angel sent
from heaven to reorder the turmoil in Abera’s world. Both parties’ prayers
seemed to be answered. Ironically, Abera does not like her role shift, as it
means becoming a herald like Hailemariam. Therefore, he unconsciously
wants to blame her for his failure. Abera’s anxiety increases as the final day
approaches for him to become a full-time artist. While in the middle of this
dilemma, Abera hears a rumor that “Lulit is seeing someone else,” and with
rage ends up taking an innocent life.
There was a time when Abera had attempted suicide prior to this tragic
homicide. The day he attempted suicide, thinking that Lulit had left him the
morning after he drunkenly abused her; she had in fact gone out to rent him
a new studio so that he would heed the call to his new vocation— become a
painter. And the day he committed the homicide was his birthday, the same
day when Lulit went out to buy him painting materials. She did this by
selling all her jewelry, escorted by Hailemariam. When Abera heard the
rumor, he went mad with jealousy and killed an innocent woman. These
parallel incidents create a feeling of tragic irony in the reader’s mind.
Sacramental symbolism is appropriate to interpret these two scenes.
First and foremost, Abera’s sudden departure from a world where he was
supposed to play the role of a god was impious. The fact that Lulit and
Hailemariam went together for the same purpose for the first time shows a
change in “belief.” Secondly, Lulit’s unexpected dedication to her husband’s
success, to the extent of selling her jewelry, goes beyond the usual expres-
sion of one’s love. Gold is a universal symbol that is very much related to
religious worship.45 It is noted that she was an “idol” worshipped by men,
which makes her gold jewelry not only an accessory to her beauty but also
an embodiment of her goddessness. Thus, her decision to sell her jewelry
signifies her willingness to replace her former identity with a new one. In
other words, she submits her divine power to Abera’s artistic journey and
supremacy. Following this line of interpretation, the studio becomes a
temple where Abera’s godly power is manifested. It is at this stage of their
relationship that Abera goes around carrying a gun, becomes inconsiderate,
irrationally blind with rage, and murders a female “figure.” He then hands
himself over to the police. The root cause of these two acts being despair,
leads to the conclusion that his ultimate act is the outcome of the first act of
initiation.
Subsequent to Abera’s act of murder, the whole world in Ke'admas

bashaggär becomes chaotic. Hailemariam undergoes a complete metamor-
phosis from an atheist to a theist. Abera’s mother dies of a heart attack right
after the sad news. His brother accidentally meets Hailemariam at Lulit’s
place, shoots him, and commits suicide. Although the tempo escalated after
Abera’s mortal blunder, the chaos began on the day he quit his job to
become a full time painter. Both his marriage and his decision to give up his
job were unexpected and unplanned. In addition, the only reason he went to
Lulit’s workplace unannounced is jealousy. What is worse, he was not
himself when he flew to the hotel where she was alleged to have committed
adultery. The rest is the anticlimax in which the bottom collapses from his
world—fatal mistake, gunshot, and spilling of innocent blood.
If we analyze the melodramatic incidents that put fate, coincidence, and
chance to take the lead role in one’s life through existentialism, they endow the
novel with a sense of absurdity. The dominant incidents—sudden and untimely
death, disillusionment, guilt, despair, imprisonment, alienation—found in the
last chapters of Ke'admas bashaggär are also shared by the other novels. All seem
to be evidence of the absurdity of human existence.
Abera’s last regret “why didn’t I commit suicide?”46 and his wish “the
one thing that I am looking for in this world is death”47 could be read
parallel to the three monks’—däbtära Aklilu’s, Seble’s, and Tsione’s—fear of
punishment and death wish. Since “he completely took out God from his
heart,”48 no heavenly life or punishment awaits Abera. Even his earthly
punishment is not done judicially to which he willingly surrendered out of
a sense of “legal obligation.” This institution is not tantamount to his eternal
punishment. He is governed by moral obligation, and hell is his own conscious-
ness in which he suffers from regret, disappointment, sadness, and guilt feeling.
This is his biggest nightmare. Unlike the monks, the fact that Abera is an atheist
gives him the freedom to rule over himself. His regret is that he knew he could
have escaped a slow and painful psychological death if he had immediately
taken his own life rather than have surrendered. Now that he is in prison, he
does not have any private moment or space. With this end, he subjects himself
to existential anguish like those who become monks.
In Létum aynägalləñ, the principal characters are prostitutes and men in
their early ages. Most of the men are either college graduates or dropouts
who preferred to join the world of work. The only commonality among the
women is their prostitution. These young men and women meet at a place
called Wube Bäräha (“Wube Desert”), a territory outside of the society’s

acceptable boundaries. It is a red light district for lost souls, a dark and
troubled world of conflict, isolation, and anxiety. The whole story of this
novel depicts Wube Bäräha and what goes on in these people’s lives from
dusk till midnight. Sex is the center of gravity which regulates the life-blood
of these characters. Eroticism, violence, and perversity are major scenes
that make Wube Bäräha the chaotic world it is. All these things are bluntly
pictured in Létum aynägalləñ. The dialogue, description, and narration flow
as it is, in tandem with the characters’ behaviors and actions.
As I mentioned earlier, the brothel in Létum aynägalləñ is a place where
suicide is committed. Here, sexuality and death are the obverse and reverse
sides of the same phenomenon. In the ordinary sense, a brothel is attributed
to “demonic erotic relation”49 and venereal disease. This attribution in turn
signifies the decadence of society, moral decay, and deviant behavior. The
world of Wube Bäräha entertains the act and thought of culturally dis-
avowed ways of sex and sexuality. Parallel to this fight, quarrel, terror, and
blood are the usual scenes. This is also a residence for monstrous characters
that move around chalking a boundary and challenging others to trespass
it—“[d]are to cross this line if you can!”50 It is also a place where young
people torture themselves by excessive sadomasochistic behaviors. For
instance, the sadistic and masochistic excesses of this world are embodied in
the thoughts of a first person self-conscious character-narrator:
If you want to endow yourself with spiritual strength not of a phallus

“Do I care if the society’s value prohibits having sex with under ages?
Of course not to be found out. If I feel like it, I can fuck a 4-year old
vagina let alone a 14-year old. I the son of a man!” you say it.
If you like to torture your mind, when you fuck the youngest of all, ask
“how old are you?” “Thirteen” she will say, that “Alas, for St. George’s
sakes! How naughty I’ve become! When I fuck a thirteen year old child!”
Then after you tell her “give me your back!” When she says “what! What
is this?” with a child’s voice filled with shyness you tell her that “I am
going to give you two birr additional” she gives you her back. When you
penetrate her, you say to yourself “oh! My Hail Mary, what would my
mother say if she had seen me fucking a 13-year old girl's anus?”
Following, keep telling yourself that “maybe she is twelve or eleven, she
might be afraid of me being scared and losing the money” then you
can manage to torture your mind as you like. If you want to leave
without paying her after you are done fucking. Or while fucking her,
tell yourself “she is in equal age as my baby sister Almaz. What if
someone penetrates my Almaz like the way I do to this one? 51
The young have already become part of the decay, perversity, bloodshed,
and torture. They, however, do not have the willingness and/or capacity to live
outside of this. The character Kinfe is our proof to this kind of life. One day,
Kinfe—this name is common to the place as if it is another name of Wube
Bäräha—went to his aunt’s house accidentally and found them packing to go to
Langano. He was invited to join them. He accepted the invitation and went with
them. He thought the journey would be a respite not only from Mamite, the
prostitute whom he sleeps with, “but also from Wube Bäräha.” The truth
dawned on him on the fourth day of his stay at Langano:
Compared to the commotion, tobacco, drink, and general decadence

reigning at Wube Bäräha, Langano’s wind, sun, lake, sand, and trees
with birds were like heaven. Nevertheless, the four days for Kinfe
seemed like four months.
Had it not been for Mama Psycho, he would have felt like as if he
stayed there for four years. [“Mama Psycho” is a nick name for his aunt
who is known for voraciously having read Freud, Jung, Adler, etc. We
can relate her name to Kinfe’s consciousness.]52
In Létum aynägalləñ, we find and identify young people chained in this

kind of “purgatory” or “existential hell.” In Frye’s apt expression, it is “the
world of the nightmare and the scapegoat, of bondage and pain and
confusion; the world also of perverted or wasted work, ruins and catacombs,
instruments of torture and monuments of folly.”53 Therefore, we can say
that Wube Bäräha is a means of committing suicide meticulously.
4. Fiction Meets History: A Prophetic Self-Criticism
For some time, art, philosophy and literature had been sending out
“signals” of the gathering storms.
—Harry Slochower, Literature and Philosophy between Two World Wars54
One task of the poet is to penetrate [the readers’] torpor, to awaken

them to full consciousness of their condition, to let them see where
they are.
—Cleanth Brooks, “T. S. Eliot” 55
As I have mentioned in the introduction section, “The Generation”

challenged the legitimacy of the ancien régime as well as the very symbols
and identities of the nation. It aspired to destroy Ethiopia in order to rebuild
it on socialist foundations.56 Nevertheless, this “generation” was character-
ized by confusion, ambivalence, and fragmentation. This is especially
manifested in the generation’s detachment from the society that it sought to
liberate. In a critical time when the movement became strong, started to
capture the mass, and weaken the regime, the body ironically began to
disintegrate. It overflowed with ultra-leftist radicalism, sloganeering, pe-
dantic hairsplitting, and factional bloodsheds. 57 Despite the “general nega-
tion of the system” and the vague conception of Marxism-Leninism, this
generation of upheavals did not possess “any single orientation or positive
program of action (in the strictly political sense).”58 This was a fatal flaw
that foreordained the course of the 1974 revolution. As Macquarie noted,
“[m]an’s liberation is not only from something, but for something.”59 As
evidenced in the novels’ narratives that are representative of the generation,
it was obvious that the generation’s unrestrained movement would ulti-
mately fall apart and end up in futility and self-annihilation.
In spite of their identification with the generation’s call for change, we
find the novelists and in particular Dagnachew Worku, Be’alu Girma, and
Sibhat Gebre Egzabher, expressing their reservations regarding the spirit of
the student movement at its peak. As part of the generation and the
movement, they criticized its stance, taking full ownership of its acts. Even
Sibhat, whom some consider as indifferent to such matters, said “Janhoy
[His Majesty] tried hard to cultivate us with education. But except a few,
most of us miscarried.”60 This kind of regretful critique could be a token of
abiding fear. Be’alu, in his interview with the then weekly Amharic news-
paper Yäzaréyïtu ïthiopiya, said Ke'admas bashaggär “is a symbolic novel that
discloses the futile life we all were in.”61 “What we have achieved in 3000
years cannot be replaced easily,” while seriously criticizing the intolerance
and radicalism of the generation, Dagnachew pointed out the need to
balance tradition and change.62
Their novels, which were written on the eve of the revolution, are
motivated by such abhorrence and anxiety. On the one hand, they properly
delineated the spirit of the time and tried to awaken the generation to see
the danger that is to come. They also foreshadowed the nation’s fate in a
prophetic manner. All these undertakings made them politically engaged
works of art. Their prophetic critique is manifested in two interconnected
means— disfigurement/decay and death/dying. Adäfrəs, Ke'admas bashaggär,
and Létum aynägalləñ are excellent examples for both.
Decay and disfigurement are dominant imageries particularly in these
novels. Ethiopia’s romantic image is highly challenged. Nature, religion,
and history—which I strongly believe are the trinity for the romance of
Ethiopia—are destroyed, expired, and decomposed.63 The first paragraph
that we encounter in Adäfrəs64 is a scene where the physical and social
environments are inextricably juxtaposed. This is the setting in which the
whole story of the novel is enacted and is a representative microcosm of the
larger Ethiopia. This is how this place is described by the narrator:
“ . . . when one looks at the sub-province of Yəfat and Ţəmmuga from the
top of Ţarmabär Mountain, it looks like the store where God dumped all the
junk after He finished creating the world.”65 As an introduction, the scene
does not encourage further reading. It commences by telling us that
the setting resembles a place where “the sky and the earth seem to
converge”—virtual closure. What is more, life is swamped with dust and
drowned with silt. If you happen to enter, you will not be able to come out;
you are locked inside.
In the first chapter of Ke'admas bashaggär, the murky atmosphere of
Abera’s house has the same effect. The scene is filled with melancholic
muteness and darkness with a huge soundless radiogram that “looks like a
coffin,” couches, and a carpet “which looked like a stained blood.” 66 It is
here that Abera, who is the heart of decay and disfigurement, compares
himself with a fly that was able to pass through a window—“I don’t have a
single outlet!”67 These kinds of comparisons, that have a dehumanizing
effect, are recurrent in the novel. Abera is a thing and at that “a worthless
decayed thing,”68 “a putrid cabbage,”69 “a chicken seated on a rotten egg,”
and “what is surprising is that he doesn’t even sense this bad odor.” 70 As the
symbolized physical description, Abera is not an integrated being, for there
is no cohesion between his physic and psyche. Abera, whom we find
standing naked in the bathroom,71 is completely two people like his teeth;
“white on the outside and a rusted zinc on the inside.” 72 His well-known
glamorous dressing— glittery suit, shiny shoes, sparkly shirt, and tie 73—are
a cover for his twisted pubic-armpit hairs and long toenails that gave him an
animal look, for they are bent and broken.74
In Adäfrəs, nature itself is disfigured. In the very same scene, there is,
for instance, a natural course that goes backward, starting from “defe-
cating,” followed by “breaking wind— digesting—swallowing—masti-
cating,” etc.75 This reversal commences from decay, a decay that adds to
the dust and silt in the story. The defecation imagery is elevated in Létum
aynägalləñ. In an introductory monologue presented by the character-
narrator, it says, “If you think about it a little, eating would be a very
shameful act.”76 The first chapter of Létum aynägalləñ, which is built (or
destroyed?) by free association and parody amalgamation, presents a
distorted world. Here human nature is mainly disrespected. The narra-
tive overflows with unpleasant images. Terms like “gonorrhea,” “syphi-
lis,” “shit,” “fart,” “filthy,” “stinky,” “putrid,” etc., are rampant through-
out the chapter. These terms in relation to digestion and elimination
organs, in addition to women’s genitals, are painted with nature, reli-
gion, and history.
In the following chapters of Létum aynägalləñ, the dignified culture and
rituals are sacrilege in travesty mode. The scene in Adäfrəs is stuffed with
hodgepodges and dotted randomly with tabots dedicated to the archangel
Michael. Ironically, the life that entrusted itself to the tabots does not seem
to get the protection it expects from them. The way the tabots are placed—
juxtaposed with worthless items—makes them look like they themselves are
in need of a protector. In Ke'admas bashaggär, it seems like the existence of
an external god is denied and instead man’s potential godliness is preached.
The self-imposed impotence and disintegration of Abera is blamed on the
failure of society and its culture. “Although we have 3000 years of civiliza-
tion, we are not living in a society where any art professional can be
cherished” he said.77
The compelling image of the country’s history is awfully ridiculed in
Létum aynägalləñ. It is presented derisively fused with sexual perversity. For
instance, the nation’s history is irreverently sexualized by comparing the
heroic deeds of Ethiopian patriots in Maychäw with their sons’ “adventure”
in the brothels;78
we Ethiopian adults [use] the phallus that our fathers persevered for
3000 years in the desert and forest like a freedom statue to fuck young
girl’s vagina [We did it] guided by the example, model and monument
set by our forefathers who raped Gragn and sent away Fascist . . . .
In the very scene of Adäfrəs, “great” Ethiopian kings are selected and
listed in a strange manner starting with Ezana of Axum to Menilek of Adwa,
absent of their usual divine grace, majestic thrones, and crowns. They are
merely part of the crowd. They are there hand in hand— chained-by-the-
hyphens—with the laymen in the crowd. What is worse, they are part and
parcel of the life that is covered with dust and swamped with silt.79
As I have already mentioned, the second manifestation that concretizes the

novelists’ prophetic critique is death and dying. In Adäfrəs, Tsione and
Roman, whom Dagnachew80 refers to as representations of ancient Ethiopia
and the Ethiopia after the Italian interlude respectively, seem to live in
perfect harmony. Tsione’s lifetime friend and modern education sympa-
thizer Gorfu falls in love with her. She nevertheless turns her back on him
for Adäfrəs, a university student. The old-fashioned Gorfu joins the army in
disappointment. Although Adäfrəs likes Tsione, he prefers to be with
Roman. Adäfrəs, the eponymous character who was always polemic in his
outbursts of “life and death; ignorance and knowledge,” gets fatally
wounded while attempting to make peace between high school student
protestors and a government security force. Suddenly, Gorfu appears in-
stead of Adäfrəs’s friend Kibret and stays besides him until the end. He picks
him up saying “ . . . our ignorance is much better sir, our ignorance . . .
what knowledge, to hell with the so-called knowledge . . . . for it does not
separate life and death . . . the so-called knowledge . . . ”81 This is a novel
where everyone loses. Adäfrəs dies on (and by) Gorfu’s hand. 82 The tragic
irony is Gorfu could not marry Tsione. She chose to become a nun. Roman
ended up in prostitution. If we say Tsione and Roman are symbols of
Ethiopia, what then does it signify when the nation goes to a monastery and
a brothel at the same time? This is an irony of fate. Cosmic irony!
This kind of absolute defeat is also a fate shared by the characters of the
other novels. The eternal prison and bondage of Seble, Aklilu, and Abera is
comparable to the “freedom” of gudu Kassa, Tewodros, and Hailemariam.
The latter declared their freedom to the world, but society considered them
“insane” and “weird.” They all criticized societal values and dismissed the
status quo. Nevertheless, these nihilistic characters are entrapped by their
own freedom as if they are cursed. They fall into a trap set by the threshold
guardians of the society they criticized and offended. Gudu Kassa is evicted
from his hometown and forced to live in a monastery. Tewodros— or the
great spirit of Tewodros—was paralyzed by Aklilu (representing the clergy)
and the other antagonist in YäTéwodros ənba, Gared (representing the
nobility). Hailemariam is ruined by his lifetime rival, the traditionalist Ato
Abate. As the characters are the embodiment of the authors’ vision,
Tewodros’s agony and tears, gudu Kassa’s heartbreak and exile, and partic-
ularly Hailemariam’s sudden conversion and death concretize their disillu-
sionment and despair.
The reason for Hailemariam’s metamorphosis seems to be evasion of
responsibility due to his lack of self-confidence. As pointed out earlier,
Abera’s choice and decisions are detrimental. The fact that Abera is a
half-baked hero, at times a monster created by Hailemariam, is the source of
the chaos and destruction in Ke'admas bashaggär. In order for Hailemariam
to be in full possession of his godly power, it was important that he accept
the responsibilities of freedom and protect the world he had created with his
own choice and decision. According to Sartre, “[m]an being condemned to
be free carries the weight of the whole world on his shoulders; he is
responsible for the world.”83 However, Hailemariam could not bear such a
responsibility. It was like a curse. He is forced to look for a Supreme Being
other than himself and submit to it. A man who preaches freedom, opposes
supernatural interferences in man’s life, and tries to build Ke'admas bashag-
gär’s (Beyond the Horizon’s) world in his own ideal, exhausts his own
freedom. Hailemariam is incapable of discharging his responsibility. He
cannot get full entitlement, for there is no such thing as partial existence. As
he cannot live life to the fullest, his death would be necessary.
The horrible incidents in each novel are manifestations of the authors’
unbearable disillusionment, angoisse and angst over what is to come of the
future. Adäfrəs and Hailemariam’s tragic end, which are considered to be
poetic as well as political justice, signify the complete defeat and disarray of
“the generation.” As Dagnachew confirmed, four years after the publication
of the novels, the signification was proved to be prophetic.
There was no other way (out) for Adefris than death— he was too
superficial . . . . That is why we failed during this Revolution—we
are like Adefris. Adefris is the superfluous man in the 1960s (G.C).
Old people had values—they died for their religion, their land, their
country. Now we have no such values. If these (values) are ignored
what values are left? There is nothing that is really a part of people's
lives . . . . Those (old) people want to live because they have values
as driving forces. What makes us want to live? We lack such values
or the values are not integrated and a driving force (in our lives)—it
is only intellectualism but no more. Therefore Adefris dies— he is
not whole; he is fragmented and divorced from society. 84
The conjunction of interrelated phenomena— decay/disfigurement and

death/dying—is a conscious strategy that underpins the novelists’ claim
regarding the generation’s disintegration and fragmentation and its lack of
value. On the other hand, it is a prophecy that suggests the end of the
confusion and disorientation of the movement. Of course, it is aesthetically
significant to materialize structural parallelism and thematic symmetry
among the novels.
NOTES
I would like to thank my wife, Emmua for her great effort to breathe life to this
article. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Elizabeth Wolde Giorgis for her unreserved
contribution while writing this article. I am also thankful to my friends—
Tewodros Haile Mariam and Abinet Mengiste—for their thorough reading and
comments. I am grateful to Dr. Yonas Admassu who inspired and taught me to
read literature differently.
1. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gyatri Chakravorty Spivak

(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), ixxxix.
2. Létum aynägalləñ though it was written at the end of 1960’s and the
beginning of 1970’s—see Reidulf K. Molvaer, Black Lions: The Creative Lives
of Modern Ethiopia's Literary Giants and Pioneers (Lawrenceville, NJ: Red
Sea Press, 1997), 356; and Zenebe Wella, Səbhat Gäbrä-Əgzï’abhér:
Masətawəša (2001; repr., Addis Ababa: Berhanena Salam Printing
Enterprise, 2006), 238. It was not published for the “perversity” of its
subjects and the “obscenity” of its style. The manuscript, however, reached
many people as it was passed around individuals. It was only later, in
2001, that a published, revised version of the original script reached the
public. The book I am using for this article came out in 2007. This novel is
stylistically experimental and thematically radical—see Tewodros Gebre,
“Myth and Sexuality: A Mythopoeic Reading of Létum Aynegalliñ,” Callaloo
33 (2010): 136 – 45. Surprisingly though, it has not yet received the
appropriate place in Amharic literary academics.
3. Louis Montrose, “Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics of
Culture,” in The New Historicism, ed. H. Aram Veeser (New York:
Routledge, 1989), 15–36.
4. Stephen Greenblatt, “Shakespeare and the Exorcists,” in Contemporary
Literary Criticism: Literature and Cultural Studies, 2nd ed., ed. Robert Con
Davis and Ronald Schleifer (New York and London: Longman, 1989), 429.
5. Quoted in Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in
Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973; repr., Baltimore and London: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1975), 50.
6. Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore
and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 91.
7. Molvaer, Black Lions, 297.
8. Richard Greenfield, Ethiopia: A New Political History (New York: F. A.
Praeger, 1965), 430.
9. Patrick Gilkes, The Dying Lion: Feudalism and Modernization in Ethiopia
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975), 241.
10. Qalekristos Abbay, Yä1953tu Yämängəst Gələbätខខta Mukkärana kä1908 –1966
Yä Ïthiopiya Polätikawi Hidät [The 1953 coup attempt and the political process
of Ethiopia from 1908 to 1966] (Addis Ababa: Berhanena Salam Printing
Enterprise, 2005), 308.
11. Greenfield, Ethiopia, 2.
12. I think ras Abbaba Aragay, who led the patriots for five years during Italy’s
invasion and later became Defense Minister, could be a good example for
being a victim of such a reckless act. Ras Abbaba was highly respected among
young intellectuals, not only for his nationalist sentiments and for leading the
army, but also for being wise and eloquent. See Zawde Ratta, Yä’Erətra Guday
1941–1963 [The Eritrean Question 1941–1963] (Addis Ababa: Berhanena
Salam Printing Enterprise, 1999), 502–3. For instance, the Foreign Minister,
Aklilu Habta-Wald, who is known for winning the negotiation for the
confederacy of Eritrea with Ethiopia that took place at the United Nations
following the aftermath of the war, called for ras Abbaba, who does not speak
any foreign language, to lead a top delegation and join him in Paris in the
negotiation with Italy (Zawde, Yä’Erətra Guday, 46 – 49). Nevertheless, the
king, realizing ras Abbaba’s symbolic representation, perturbing at the
ideological and political implication, and worrying that this would increase
the tension between those who returned from exile and the patriots, sent a
delegation led by returnees instead of him.
13. Qalekristos, Yä1953tu Yämängəst Gələbätខខta Mukkära, 228, 285 and 289;
and Christopher Clapham, “The Ethiopian Coup d'Etat of December 1960,”
The Journal of Modern African Studies 6, no. 4 (1968): 496 –97.
14. See for instance, Harold Marcus, “1960, the Year the Sky Began Falling on
Haile Sellassie,” Northeast African Studies 6, no. 3 (1999): 13.
15. Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia 1855–1991, 2nd ed. (Oxford,
Athens and Addis Ababa: James Currey, Ohio University Press and Addis
Ababa University Press, 2002), 212.
16. Andargachew Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution: 1974 –1987. A
Transformation from an Aristocratic to a Totalitarian Autocracy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995); and Randi Ronning Balsvik, Haile
Selassie’s Students: The Intellectual and Social Background to Revolution,
1952–1974 (Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press, 2005).
17. Bahru Zewde, YäÏthiopiya Tarik: kä1847 iskä 1983 [History of Ethiopia:
from 1847 to 1983], 2nd ed. (Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press,
2007), 225; Bahru, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 212.
18. Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in Reading the
Past: Literature and History, ed. Tamsin Spargo (New York: Palgrave, 2000),
120.
19. We can make this tangible by using the following two points. Lieutenant
Colonel Warqenah Gabyyahu, who was one of the key engineers of the
coup and who committed suicide during a shootout, in his last words,
when he was running out of bullets said that “Tewodros taught me not to
surrender” (Greenfield, Ethiopia, 436; and Qalekristos, Yä1953tu Yämängəst
Gələbätខខta Mukkära, 224). Secondly, I believe that Amharic literature is a
manifestation for this kind of sentiment—many of the existing historical
literary texts are written based on the life of this hero.
20. Sven Rubenson, King of Kings Tēwodros of Ethiopia (Addis Ababa: Haile
Sellasie I University, 1966).
21. Sven Rubenson, The Survival of Ethiopian Independence, rev. ed. (London:
Heinemann, 1978); and Rubenson, King of Kings Tēwodros of Ethiopia.
22. Tekle-Tsadeq Makurya, Aše Tewodros ena Ye’Ityopia Andənät [Emperor
Tewodros and the Unity of Ethiopia] (Addis Ababa: Kuraz Publishing
Enterprise, 1989), 402.
23. Bahru, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 214.
24. We can say for sure that history repeated itself during this period. Let me
show you a few parallels: the fact that names of both coup leader
individuals being “Mangestu” (literally it means the government) is the
primary one. When both father and son, who are said to be
“progressive”—ras Emeru Hayla-Selasse and lej Mikael Emeru—are
nominated for the position of Prime Minister, General Mulugeta Buli and
General Aman Mikael Andom are nominated for état-Major because of
their respect among the army. In the history of these periods, the
“elites,” father and son, survive, whereas the generals were executed
with the kings’ ministers. There are some—see for instance Bahru
Zewde, Society, State and History: Selected Essays (Addis Ababa: Addis
Ababa University Press, 2008), 289 —who say that därg learned a lot
from the Neway brothers, and even thought of making the crown prince
a “puppet king.”
25. Paul Henze, Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (London: Hurst and
Company, 2000), 289.
26. Pierre Macherey, The Object of Literature, trans. David Macey (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), 234.
27. Be’alu Girma, Ke'admas bashaggär (1970; repr., Addis Ababa: Far East
Trading, 2007), 7– 8.
28. Be’alu, Ke'admas bashaggär, 8.
29. Birhanu Zerihun, YäTéwodros ənba (Addis Ababa: Berhanena Salam
Printing Enterprise, 1966), 139.
30. Birhanu, YäTéwodros ənba, 8 –9. YäTéwodros ənba, which is based on
confessional narration and omnipresence-omnipotence content, can be
categorized as a suicide note. For more discussion, see Tewodros Gebre,
Bäyənnä-disipəlinäwi yäsənä sខ əhuf nəbab [Interdisciplinary Reading of
Literature] (Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press, 2009),
191–97.
31. Haddis Alemayehu, Fəqər əskä mäqabər (1966; repr., Addis Ababa: Mega
Publishing Enterprise, 2007), 547.
32. Haddis, Fəqər əskä mäqabər, 548 – 49.
33. Haddis, Fəqər əskä mäqabər, 549.
34. Haddis, Fəqər əskä mäqabər, 551–52.
35. Dagnachew Worku, Adäfrəs (Addis Ababa: Commercial Printing Enterprise,
1970), 328.
36. In psychological terms, since in their monasticism their escape
outweighs their heroic self-sacrifice, we can consider their decision as
an interior quest and the monastery as the characters’ minds. Their
monastic life style could serve as a symbol of their futility and absolute
alienation.
37. Emile Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, trans. John A. Spaulding
and George Simpson (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), 44.
38. Durkheim, Suicide, 44.
39. Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster
(New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1971).
40. Denys de Catanzaro, Suicide and Self-Damaging Behavior: A Sociobiological
Perspective (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, and San Francisco:
Academic Press, 1981), 73.
42. John Macquarrie, Existentialism: An Introduction, Guide and Assessment
(New York: Penguin Books, 1972), 58.
43. There is a woman called “Lilith” who appears more frequently in Hebrew oral
narratives. She is said to be the first wife of Adam and the first feminist rebel
against God and the patriarchal system. She was aggressive and wanted him to be
submissive to her sexual feelings and take the lead role in sex play which forced
God to create Eve who is submissive from Adam’s flesh. Then God put a curse on
Lilith and turned her to evil that comes in Man’s dream at night even today.
44. Be’alu, Ke'admas bashaggär, 218 –19.
45. For more discussion, see Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays
(1957; repr., London: Penguin Books, 1990), 146.
49. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 149.
50. Sibhat Gebre-Igzï’abhiér, Létum aynägalliñ, 2nd ed. (Addis Ababa: Qalkidan
Tadesse Publisher, 2008), 78.
51. Sibhat, Létum aynägalliñ, 71–72.
52. Sibhat, Létum aynägalliñ, 196.
53. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 147.
54. Harry Slochower, Literature and Philosophy between Two World Wars: The Problem
of Alienation in a War Culture (New York: The Citadel Press, 1964), xvi.
55. Cleanth Brooks, “T. S. Eliot: Thinker and Artist,” in T. S. Eliot, ed. Harold
Bloom (Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003), 97–111.
56. See Fentahun Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Students: Their Struggle to Articulate the
Ethiopian Revolution (Chicago: Nyala Type, 1990); Kiflu Tadesse, The
Generation, The History of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party: Part I,
from the Early Beginnings to 1975 (Trenton, NJ: The Red Sea Press, 1993);
Andargachew Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution; and Andargachew
Assaged, Bä’ačrəyr yätäqäčä rajəm guzo: mäison bäityopya həzboch təgəl wəstខ
[A Long Journey Cut Short: Ma’ison in the Struggle of the Ethiopian
Peoples] (Addis Ababa, Central Printing Press, 2000).
57. Bahru, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 226.
58. Yonas Admassu, “What Were They Writing About Anyway?: Tradition and
Modernization,” Callaloo 33, no. 1 (2010): 75–76.
59. Macquarrie, Existentialism, 181.
60. In Zenebe, Səbhat gäbrä-əgzï’abhér, 94.
61. Yäzaréyïtu Ïthiopiya, 30 May 1981, 4.
62. In Molvaer, Black Lions, 298 –99.
63. For detailed analysis, see Tewodros, “Nature, Religion and History:
De/Mythologizing of the Romance of Ethiopia in “Abbay” and Adäfrïs,” in
East African Literature: Essays on Written and Oral Traditions, ed. J. K. S.
Makokha, Egara Kabaji, and Dominica Dipio (Berlin: Logos, 2011), 69 – 84.
64. Dagnachew, Adäfrəs, 5– 6.
65. Dagnachew, Adäfrəs, 5.
66. Be’alu, Ke'admas bashaggär, 7– 8.
71. Be’alu, Ke'admas bashaggär, 11–12.

76. Sibhat, Létum aynägalliñ, 6.
78. Sibhat, Létum aynägalliñ, 71–72.
80. In Molvaer, Black Lions, 299.
82. One of the literary devices that Dagnachew used to delineate the spirit of
the time, particularly the confusion, is intentional disorientation. This is
best shown in the death of Adäfrəs, which is a subject of disagreement
among literary scholars. The conclusion that “Adäfrəs is killed by a stone
accidentally thrown by his own students” and “Adäfrəs is killed by a stone
thrown intentionally by his adversary Gorfu” would lead to completely
different political and ideological implications. See Fikre Tolossa, “Realism
and Amharic Literature (1908 –1981)” (PhD diss., University of Bremen,
1983), 217–18; Tayye Assefa, “Form in the Amharic Novel” (PhD diss.,
SOAS, University of London, 1986), 326; and Tewodros Gebre, “Adäfrəs:
Zämänawiw Ləb Wälläd,” [Adäfrəs: The Modern Novel] Journal of
Ethiopian Studies 39, nos. 1–2 (2006): 140 – 41.
83. Jean-Paul Sartre. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological
Ontology, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (London: Methuen and Co Ltd, 1956), 553.
84. In Molvaer, Black Lions, 299.
View publication stats

Period, History, and The Literary Art: Historicizing Amharic Novels

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Period, History, and The Literary Art: Historicizing Amharic Novels

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Period, History, and the Literary Art: Historicizing Amharic Novels

Article in Northeast African Studies · July 2013

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Northeast African Studies, Volume 13, Number 1, 2013 (New Series),

Published by Michigan State University Press

For additional information about this article

TEWODROS GEBRE, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

The age already in the past is in fact constituted in every respect as a

When I received an invitation in December 2010 to contribute to this

Ethiopia, during the ﬁnal decades of the imperial regime, had

“national imagery” of Ethiopia is a common motif. The paradox is,

2. The Textuality of History

History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the

[H]istories ought never to be read as unambiguous signs of the

The December 1960 abortive coup (known in Amharic as yä'tahəsas

compatriots were hanged publicly in broad daylight. Tsegge Dibbu’s was

degeneration of the Ethiopian Students Movement (ESM) into warring

1. “The martyrs of December are not dead, they are alive!”

3. The Zeitgeist in the Novels—The Novels in the Zeitgeist

The role of literature is to say what a period thinks of itself.

Death is a dominant incident in the novels, and dying characters are

therefore, entreats Tewodros to ﬁnish him by the sword. Tewodros, how-

“Whatever happened is in the past. You cannot reverse what has

As discussed above, the novels conveyed death-initiated monasticism

compassionate, caring, and ready to sacriﬁce herself to her husband. The

Subsequent to Abera’s act of murder, the whole world in Ke'admas

called Wube Bäräha (“Wube Desert”), a territory outside of the society’s

If you want to endow yourself with spiritual strength not of a phallus

Compared to the commotion, tobacco, drink, and general decadence

In Létum aynägalləñ, we ﬁnd and identify young people chained in this

4. Fiction Meets History: A Prophetic Self-Criticism

One task of the poet is to penetrate [the readers’] torpor, to awaken

As I have mentioned in the introduction section, “The Generation”

As I have already mentioned, the second manifestation that concretizes the

The conjunction of interrelated phenomena— decay/disﬁgurement and

1. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gyatri Chakravorty Spivak

72. Be’alu, Ke'admas bashaggär, 7.

View publication stats

You might also like