Presently, Nigeria is one of the leading African countries in terms of economic development and cultural and linguistic vibrancy. The Nigerian economic is one of the biggest in Africa. Although studies are not readily available, its cultural industry is one of the leading in the continent. Nigerian cinema and literature in English can be considered the best on the continent. Proof of it is that many Nigerian writers have won prestigious international literary awards including the noble Prize. The prestigious Nigerian cinema has joined the global stage and continues to grow as a high speed. Some of the best and richest black musicians in the world are Nigerians.
One of the major problems in Africa is the absence of cross-cultural or cross-linguistic integration or vertical links between the people of different African countries. Even countries who are geographic adjacent to one another, display a very weak cultural and linguistic linkages. It is easier to read Kenyan writers in English than in Swahili. People at the grassroots level have developed cross -cultural relationships that are mainly confined to cross border trade or security. Culture or language is not yet a factor of Africa’s integration. African arts and culture is more available in English or French rather than in African languages. You cannot imagine a Kenyan writer working in English or an Algerian writer working in Portuguese.
Ethiopian writers who wrote novels or short stories in English are very few. First, English has never been Ethiopia’s national language but a second working language. Secondly Ethiopia has not been under colonial administration in its history. Third, English as a foreign language was introduced to Ethiopia around the last century as part and parcel of the modernization of the educational system under Emperor Haile Selassie. Most, if not all the Ethiopian writers who started to write in foreign language were members of the first or second generation of students.
Among the first generation of Ethiopian writers who wrote in English is Haddis Alemayehu who is considered the best writer in Amharic, the national language. Haddis Alemayehu has not written a novel in English. His work consists of a short story entitled, “The War of Cats and Mice”. Below is an excerpt from the story:
Once upon a time there were two independent governments. The first was the government of cats and the second that of mice. Because there was a vast sea separating them, the two governments were living in isolation from one another and did not even know each other’s existence.
The government of cats made progress with population, civilization and power. Consequently, it started to face difficulties feeding its people and developing its industries. It felt the need to send envoys across the sea to see the world beyond the horizon. It was necessary to see how the creatures were living there. They had to find the means to save the race of cats from dying of hunger. The order came from the monarch to spend a great amount of money for the construction of a huge boat that would carry handsome male and female diplomats selected from across the empire of cats. The diplomats would travel with gifts of all kinds. They would then present the gifts to the government of mice.
Haddis Alemayehu’s style is something like the writing of French author called “La Fontaine”, a traditional style of storytelling that is slowly developing and uses the technique of personification to tale a moral tale.
According to my information, I would put Abe Gubegna, the second Ethiopian writer in English with his short novel entitled, “The Savage Girl”. Abe was what you might call a rebellious and courageous writer who was not afraid to criticize even top government officials of the monarchy as well as the Derg regime. He was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned as well as banished to the remotest and coldest part of Ethiopia in former province of where he spent some time before his release. But that did not deter him from writing political novels that criticized the two regimes. Abe was allegedly assassinated by the military government. He is one of the two Ethiopian writers to be killed by people in power.
The other one is of course Be’alu Girma, an American-educated journalist and author whose novels in Amharic are considered classics. Although he was educated in the States, Be’alu never wrote fiction in English although he was a consummate columnist who wrote in English for local magazines like the old or defunct Addis Reporter.
The more prominent and more prolific among that generation of writers who penned fiction in English is Sahle Selassie Berhane Mariam with his, with his debut novel “Dinega’s Village”, followed by “The Afersata”, “The Firebrands”, “Warrior King”. He also wrote a short story in English entitled, “The Woman of Azer” (1969). Sahle Selassie was also a historical novelist known for his work, entitled “Basha Kitawu” the story of an Ethiopian patriot during the Italian occupation. Sahle Selassie was also educated in the United States and used English as his main medium of expression.
Among Ethiopian authors who wrote in English is Dagnachew Worku with his famous “The Thirteenth Sun” which is considered a modernist work. Dagnachew used a new technique known as stream of consciousness in The Thirteen Sun, a technique little known among Ethiopian authors at that time. Dagnachew might have borrowed it from the works of William Faulkner who used the same technique to write immortal tales and won the Nobel Prize for his works. Like the other writers, Dagnachew was also famous for his novels in Amharic one of them being “Adefres” in which he criticized the feudal system in Ethiopia and gained fame and recognition for his excellent narrative techniques and the flow of his tales. I personally remember Dagnachew’s other work in English, entitled, God – Damn – Shot – Gun – Boogie”.
This is one of the best short stories ever written in English by an Ethiopian author. Dagnachew’s mastery of English, the exquisite way he used the language and his narrative technique, ranks him even among the best short story writers anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, Dagnachew wrote only one short story and it has remained obscure until his death, when it was published in a local magazine. Below is a simple from Dagnachew’s short story. One can enjoy the taste of his language and his mastery of the genre.
” It happened after I returned from the Congo. I had plenty of money, American money, you know… and as a man with such means and all types of possibilities about him, I went out one day to explore the world-the world I have lived in but which I hadn’t had the chance to know. There was nothing unusual in my exploration except that it was a night out with a definite objective in mind – to paint the night red, you know, drink, music, women, and all that sorts of thing. Sometimes it helps to have had the chance of visiting other countries. You’ll know how to go about such things – and I happened to be among such fortunate few.
So, I was loitering about on one of the obscure back streets of “A” about which I was told so many unheard stories. My God! I’ve forgotten to start at the right place; it puts me out of orbit – the story you know, sort of what you might feel without your compass. —god-damn-boogie….
One of the still surviving legacies of colonialism in Arica is the fact that many countries are still using English, French, or Portuguese as their national languages. These countries have found it convenient to keep on using these languages as their national working languages. The division of Africa into Francophone or French speaking and Anglophone or English speaking Africa is at the root of this embarrassing legacy. The question that often pops up among linguists or politicians is why African countries still use the languages of the colonialists instead of their own languages.
Most of them point out at Nigeria as an example. When we see the historical evolution of language usage in Nigeria from 1951 to 1967, we realize that Hausa was the official language of the northern states as the most widely spoken language although English is the official language of Nigeria. In addition to English, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fula and English Creole are widely spoken. Many of the languages also exist in written form.
Many African countries are using foreign languages in their daily life because language is primarily a tool of interpersonal communication. The trouble with African writers is that they don’t read much of the works of their counterparts or exchange experiences with them mentally, most African writers are still “Eurocentric”, focusing on the West where their books are sold and earn them big royalties and their personal survival is secured. Nowadays, many of them live in the West, in the United States and Europe in particular. Ethiopian writers who wrote in English have become a ‘vanishing species’ and the new generation seems to have lost the appetite to read books leave alone write one. However, there is still hope. Africa is full of fantastic and amazing stories awaiting their writers. maybe one day, the writers from the African Diaspora may decide to written to the continent and write in their languages as well as in the common language which is now English as African singers are now writing their lyrics in English or French or any other European language.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2025
