Survey of Ethiopian Literature in English Jimma University

1. Survey of
Ethiopian Literature in English
Definition of Ethiopian Literature
in English
Jimma University
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
Department of English Language and Literature
Compiled By: BelachewWeldegberiel (Assist professor)
E-mail: bellachew@gmail.com

2. Brainstorming Questions
 What is ‘Ethiopian Literature’?
 What is Ethiopian Literature in English? Is it English
Literature in Ethiopia or Ethiopian Literature in English?
What is the difference?
 When did it start?What are the reasons for its beginning
in Ethiopia as different from other African countries?
 What is the status of literature in vernacular/ indigenous
languages in Ethiopia?
 What about status of development of Ethiopian literature
in English?
 What factors are responsible for its condition of
development?

3. Definition of Ethiopian Literature in English
 Creative writings in English by Ethiopians or about
Ethiopia (the literature is part of English literature or
Ethiopian?)
 the issues, thoughts, characters, themes, etc of the literary
works –reflect Ethiopian context using the English
language as a medium
 The medium of the literary works (English)
 Identity of the writers (Ethiopian citizens or foreigners)
 The literature deals with Ethiopia but is written in English

4. Definition . . .
 Written by home-based Ethiopian writers or Ethiopians
living abroad/expatriates(Diaspora)


5. The origin/Beginning and Dev’t of
Ethiopian Literature in English
 Literature in European languages evolved in Ethiopia in early
1960s
 Colonialism was a reason for using the English language in
many Anglophone African countries
 Ethiopian writers long used to write in their indigenous
languages (There exists a huge corpus of vernacular literature.)
 Ethiopian literature in English appears to be suffering from
stunted growth
 Vernacular literature has long established tradition traceable
back to centuries
 Ethiopian literature in English is still in its infancy regardless of
its age (beginning in the 1950s)

6.  Ethiopian literature falls into three broad categories:
classical literature, including historical narratives, heroic
poetry, and works of philosophical reflection cast in an
imaginative mode; romantic and political literature in
Amharic, and, since the SecondWorldWar, the new
literature in English.

7.  The classical literature is expressed in Ge’ez, a Semitic
language that is also the oldest written language in Africa,
with its unique orthography going back nearly two
thousand years.
 The Holy Bible and all other Christian texts have been
translated into Ge’ez, which survives today as the
language of the Ethiopian clergy; in this respect, it has a
status similar to Latin in the western world.
 Ordinary Ethiopians neither spoke nor wrote in Ge’ez.
Therefore, the texts written in that language did not seep
into the soul of the people, and did not produce a
national literary culture.

8. Ethiopian Classical Literature
 The classical literary texts, hymns, and songs circulate
today only among the priestly class and highly specialized
students and teachers of Ge’ez.
 This is part of the reason that the modern Ethiopian state
which emerged in the late nineteenth century had to
forge a new language aimed at producing a popular
national culture through the medium of Amharic.

9. Classical Literature
 This category comprises a substantial number of
devotional books, many of them works translated from
foreign sources.
 They include biblical scriptures, exegesis, service books of
the Coptic church, texts detailing the lives of saints of the
Universal Church who flourished before the schism at the
Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE and of saints of the
Coptic church, especially the Desert Fathers, and homilies
by the early Church Fathers, such as John Chrysostom,
Athanasius of Alexandria, Severus of Antioch, and Cyril of
Alexandria (Haile 1995:40).

11. The Dilemma of Writing in English
 Writing in the English language is the legacy of colonialism
in many African countries
 This is not the case in Ethiopia as the country has never
been colonized and there was no imposition of language
 The generation of intelligentsia who attended higher
education abroad – began to write in English out of free
will
 To reach a large audience abroad as English become the
language of the world
 To escape stringent censorship by publishing abroad
 To share the cultural, historical, and social situations of the
country to the rest of the world

12. Ethiopian Writers’ Reasons for Writing
in English
 Sahle Sellassie B/mariam
 The English language is very rich and handy to deal
with diverse concepts and subjects
 In writing in English I have not only the home
readers but foreigners as well
 I strongly feel that the outside world must know
about our culture, our history, our society in
general
 You don’t encounter censorship problems when
you write in English and publish abroad

13. Tsegaye G/Medhin
Tsagaye says
 I wish I write in Oromo
 I can express myself best in Amharic
 I went to England and did some scribbling in English
 Writing in a language which the people do not understand
is ceasing to communicate with the people
 Language is one of the most sensitive instruments in a given
culture
 One could express himself best in his vernacular tongue
 Censorship – has not permitted me from to produce my
plays like Oda-Oak-Oracle in Amharic
 I feel to write in English and express my self freely
 Adv:Writing in languages like English brings you
international recognition easily than Amharic would

14. Dagnachew Worku
 By writing in English you can find a larger audience
both at home and abroad
 The same audience at home – the few educated people
can read something written in Amharic as well as in
English
 I am not in fact optimistic enough to say that the
educated ones do ever think that something worth
reading can come in Amharic.