Ethiopia has been witnessing prominent writers who picked their pen to capture the people’s socio-cultural, economic, political, and religious views and practices. These writers have been joining the writing domain with their style, knowledge, and artistic verve. Thus, their works keep on influencing readers because of their styles, the subjects they raise, and the artistic worthiness of the works. Among the prolific writers who progressively dominate the literary industry these days, Alex Abrham is one. His style coherently shapes Alex’s literary works. The artistic style that makes his works preferable is the way he looks at realities. Also the language and expressions he employs are very impressive. Since the aim of literature is informing or adding a certain value in the minds of the readers or viewers, Alex did that with the command humorist styles. The way he organizes characters, brings into play incidents and follows trends to structuralize the plot is made with logical flow that the works had power to entice the readers to keep on reading.
Among his works ‘Altezewawerechim’, which literarily means ‘she has failed’, has raised many issues that are practically experienced by the people. He echoed the social, political, economic, and religious status and perceptions of the country through the factious characters and incidents. The general reflection of this novel is presented below.
On the cover of this book, there is a table or report card that portrays the results a student received at the end of the school year. It shows that the student had scored 100% in all subjects, like Amharic, English, Maths, Science, Physics, Biology, Chemistry and History. And the result for Music was above 100, it is 101. But this student has no results for Faith, Humanity, Character, Love, Marriage and Cooking Skill. Her result indicates neither zero nor any other number. The table was blank. Since these null issues are equally important as educational subjects in the factious world, the writer made the student to repeat that educational level. This is the outer meaning that can be simply detected.
However, the meaning of the phrase ‘she failed’ conveys more than the mentioned meaning. It signifies the central meaning or gist of the novel. It did carry the failure of all the created characters from education, from love, from superiority complex and from hope. Let me get brief on this by mentioning the characters’ background in the book.
The protagonist is Mahider later her name gets changed into Mahderselam. He created her as the most beautiful girl. She was a very attractive black girl. Mahder’s color became a chocolate one when she grew up that her beauty was outshining when contrasted with that of her ugliest girlfriend called Haymanot.
On one occasion which was organized by her friend, Mahdere met with her soul mate Abraham. It was Haymanot who introduced them in that occasion. They fell in love and continued meeting in private. Then the two got entangled in affectionate love. Abraham was the first man in her life. She loved him so much that she never reserved anything from him. But the way he got in love with her was different. He only wanted to possess that chocolate color body, not her soul. He never respected her preferences, her talks, and her visions. He only liked her light dressing and slavish obedience. Then they never go far. This love can’t run for more than four years. After these years Mahder decided to get married to Yonas since she confirmed that Abrham could not and is not planning to marry her. Though her soul tarried with him, she kept struggling to maintain her marriage. She gave birth to a baby girl. Her baby girl turned everything that illumined her eclipsed life.
Haymanot was a girl with the same age of Mahdere. She was from a poor family so that she was forced to go to school with unkempt hair and style. But Mahdere was stylish since her mother was a modern woman. Haymanot’s mother usually applauded the beauty and goodness of Mahdere and degraded Haymanot at every incident. The inferiority complex got simmering unabated in her mind since that childhood.
Mahderselam’s mother was in love with someone than her husband and father of her three children. She was always waiting and looking for her lover through the window. She never took care of her children. She cannot cook food, and she never worried about the happening in the house. These are the necessary things to pass from one class to the next as the writer marked it on the certificate. But she failed. She didn’t have any result on these subjects. She abandoned her children and marriage. She failed. In that year Mahdere was disturbed and failed academically which is caused by the failure of the non-academic subjects that the writer mentioned on the table. Since in the last class Haymanot failed and her mother was blaming her by mentioning Mahdere’s result, now is her turn. Mahdere failed, Haymanot passed. They become in the same class. The word ‘she failed’ is the most fascinating word for Haymanot. Haymanot win. Mahdere never knew whether she was in competition. But Haymanot knew, and she is the winner of this competition.
The central source of this competition is the fact that every man prefers to see and get Mahdere through Haymanot. The males that seem approaching Haymanot were apt to cross her and are eager to have Mahdere. This made her develop identity crises. Though she knew that she had internal beauty, there is no one that investigated these things just because of her outward personality. Even her lover who looked like her in beauty and traits was also an object of fun of Mahdere as she found it out on the text he wrote on a piece of paper inside his bag after his death. Contra wise, Mahdere was caring to Haymanot. She convinced her to continue her MA class by paying the school fee that she collected for months. But the heart of Haymanot was not ready to see the good aspect. She left no stone unturned to hurt Mahdere. But Mahdere never realized that. She was always eager to see Haymanot as usual.
Yonas was the first child in his family. After the death of his father, the survival of the family fell on the shoulder of the young boy. He was studying for his degree in Commerce. It was there that he knew Mahdere and Haymanot. To know Mahdere he was also a friend with Haymanot. But Haymanot was interested in him. One day while he was parting from her, he was about to kiss her wall. But he mistakenly kissed her lips. That day she was about to confirm that he was in love with her. But after some time she heard that he left to America.
Yonas migrated abroad in the face of many challenges. While he was in Morocco he was in love with a very sympathetic and beautiful woman. After getting in America dialing her number he met her. But after some time they lost the boat. Then he planned to go to Morocco. He then found out that she was killed.
He has been working very hard and empowering his family economically. Then he decided to come back and live in his country.
He met Mahdere and married her and gave birth to a baby girl. He was happy. But Mahdereselam was very cold. Though he knew her as a goofy girl in their class, this character had worsened when she got in wedlock. She never talked to him. He never knew about her past. He believed that knowing the past never gave him peaceful life. Bygone days are bygones. But he traveled back in time to conjure up his love when he saw the bracelet that she gave him when he was in his way to America. She was his love, his first mate, his true friend, his family, his everything in that worst situation. The deepest silence of his wife transports him back to his memory. He had decided to throw this bracelet many times. But he could not. She is embedded in his soul, and this is the only keepsake he had from her.
In this novel the psychological frustration and wrong self-perception which are represented by the characterization of Mahdereselam and Haymanot are salient aspects to examine the novel; the ups and downs included social, economic and worse things than these. The incompatibility of social and cultural natures of the people across borders was very challenging as seen in the story of Yonas. The writer shows us how people get anxious when they are exposed to a different culture and identity.
The impact of family and socialization on the personal wellbeing of the given person is vividly portrayed by Haymanot. Moreover, the writer’s choices of words, the application of figurative speeches, and the styles he followed in expressing incidents are so attractive. As such though the ideas are known, because of the artistic approach it invokes an interest on the book. In the coming articles I will go through this novel using theoretical perspectives.
BY MEKDES TAYE (PhD)
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 12 OCTOBER 2024
