In a study of Ethiopian modern literature, play wright and poet Mengistu Lemma is at center for his works, views on art and modernism manifest Ethiopian literary richness and development. Sara Marzagora who is PhD candidate at SOAS, University of London and researching Amharic literature described Mengistu’s place in Ethiopian literature as this:
“If you ask Amharic speakers about their literary preferences, the response is almost always unanimous. The best Amharic novelist is Haddis Alemayehu and the best poet Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin. Tsegaye also wrote for theatre, and his tragedies are thought to be the finest in Amharic literature – but when it comes to comedies Mengistu Lemma always tops the list of favourite playwrights.”
Late Prof. Richard Pankhurst considered Mengistu as the Molière, Bernard Shaw or Gogol of Ethiopia. As Molière pioneered French Comedy, Mengistu has laid foundation for Ethiopian comedy plays. He wrote socially significant plays like Yalacha Gabcha (Marriage of Unequals) and Telfo Bekise (Marriage by abduction). He was fluent in English, and spoke French and Italian. He has translated his plays to English himself.
He travelled to New York, Montreal, the Soviet Union (1965), Sweden, Denmark and Turkey (1967), Scandinavia (1969) and Los Angeles (1970) and gathered world experience that was reflect in his literary work and adminstration works he did. Mengistu was also considered as Bernard Shaw as he had polemist nature. Mengistu challenged people in humarist way. He showed the good and bad in our tradition, criticized governance and examined life. In an opener to his autobigraphy Mengistu wrote this poem:
“What is the excuse
I asked for what, for what casue
For this world exist, for this life be given
For a child be born to die aged
I asked for what
For what reason
what he wanted to do with his life.
Mengistu was revered by his generations of Ethiopians for his witty and romantic verse. Late Poet Solomon Deresa said Mengistu’s poetry anthologies are pride to Amharic literature. “His first published work, however, was a volume of poetry that not only showed great promise, but also contained at least one poem that Amharic literature will always be legitimately proud of.“ Mengistu’s work was featured in his two dozen volumes of poetry and in regular contributions to local newspapers. Mengistu’s writings include Yeghetem Gubae, a volume of collected poems in Amharic, the first edition of which appeared in 1957 and second in 1963. His poem, entitled “Endiaw zim” in Amharic and its translation in English, which was done by Thomas Leiper Kane, who was the author of Ethiopian Literature in Amharic, Otto Harrasssowitz Wiesbaden (1975).
Just Be Silent
To say “I love you” avails not, it won’t do;
To say “You are my love” avails not, it won’t do.
To say “You are my soul” won’t satisfy my heart.
The matter of our love is quiet, quiet.
What I can do to explain fully that I am in love?
Let me kiss you, hug you –should I cry a little?
Shall I kiss your feet- or have you killed?
Should I read a proclamation in every public place?
Should I write on paper or send a letter?
Letting each word be born from my heart?
Should I give you my money and go broke without regret?
Should I be slaughtered, be sacrificed for your love, for mine?
All this is vain.
It will not bring the heart’s desire.
Love will not be revealed through word or dead.
Best seems to me is just be quiet, quiet.
Just completely like one’s faith
Believing, understanding that you know my love.
In his poem Yeteraw Cherka/ Under the clear moon Mengistu vividly and beautifully put what young man’s first love experience could be and by extenstion the challenge of being beginner in everything there is.
Under the clear moon deep in the night,
While like the star her eyes shone bright,
‘Kiss her!Kiss her!Embrace her!’ they said;
His purpose was this, and the youth was compelled-
Her waist and her neck in his arms he held,
And his lips drew up to her mouth in dread.
Although her pointed thorn-like breasts were firm,
He felt her slap across his temples burn.
As her whip-like hand began to fight-
Under the clear moon, deep in the night:
Woe to the beginner,and to the learner woe,
Oh, to carry out orders, and advice to know!
His poetic work YäGït’ïm guba’e’ (“Synod of Poetry”, 1964-65), was described by Dr. Martin Orwin, Senior Lecturer in Amharic and Somali at SOAS, as “a wonderful collection of poems which moved the style of Amharic poetry forwards, building on the pioneering work of figures such as Kebbede Mika’el whilst still retaining a flavour of the traditional poetic style of oral poetry”. Mengistu’s friend and eminent Ethiopianist scholar Richard Pankhurst remembers how Mengistu was seeking to create a type of poetry “traditional in form but progressive in content”.
Mengistu was born in Harar, to Aleqa Lemma Hailu and W/ro Abebech Yilma. He attended Muslim education and later Orthodox Christian studies at the Tiqo Mekane Selassie. His father has title of Aleqa which is a title given to church leaders. Mengistu often repeated that his father was perhaps the single most influential figure in his life, and honoured him by writing a biography. Mengistu taped his father reciting his own poems, the poems of those who taught him, and those of teachers another generation back. In his testimony Poet Solomon Deresa emphasized the significance of this work to Ethiopia literature. He said: “The traditional Ethiopian teaching method had leaned heavily on memory, and the ninety- eight-year-old father’s answers to the young writer’s thousand and one questions resulted in a unique book that spans two centuries of Ge’ez-Amharic poetic techniques and one man’s fruitful odyssey through a long life. Introduced in simple, clear Amharic, well annotated and indexed, the book may yet prove more important to the development of Amharic literature than any one particular work of the same calibre.” Critics consider this work as masterpiece of Mengistu.
In addition to his talents Mengistu was known for having unique patriotic feeling. He has served his country in different positions and attempted to encourage people for change through his poems and plays. He was once asked by Emperor Haile selassie what he wanted to do with his life. He replied “To serve your Majesty and to write.”
Mengistu was the Director General, Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Secretary General of the Ethiopian Literary Society; Council Member on the Ethiopian National Council for UNESCO; Council Member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Evangelical Council. On the basis of his outstanding contribution to Amharic literature, he was awarded the 1967 Haile Selassie I Prize Trust Award.
BY KFLEEYESUS ABEBE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 9 JULY 2023
