Geez literature
A great country needs a great history: Ethiopia's was not immune to events that cost the lives of both men and books, including the war with the Adal sultanate from 1527 to 1543. Nevertheless, some manuscripts survived the sackings, the oldest of which is said to be the Garima Evangelist's Book, believed to date back to the5th century. Gueze - an offshoot of a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia more than two centuries BC and transcribed using several alphabets before the adoption of an all-consonant "abjad" from which today's alphasyllabic is derived - was in fact used to convey Christian texts, a religion adopted around 330 ADC. The Ethiopian Bible, with its eighty-one books, is the world's largest canon, although some texts are considered apocryphal. Among them, the Book of Enoch fascinates, for although some fragments in Aramaic have been discovered, it is only in Guèze that a complete copy exists today. Finally, the golden age of the kingdom of Aksum - founded in the 4th century BC, but which reached its apogee between the 1st and 6th centuries - saw numerous documents translated from Greek, demonstrating the links, facilitated by access to the Red Sea, that united the future Ethiopia with its distant neighbors, notably Egypt. This corpus, made up of religious texts (lives of saints, rule of St. Pachomius), but also works of a completely different order, such as the famous natural history textbook Physiologus, a real and imaginary bestiary, was fundamental. Yet nothing remains of the period of political instability that coincided with the fall of the Axumite kingdom.
It was not until the advent of the Solomonic dynasty - which, as its name suggests, claimed to be the descendants of King Solomon - that new works flourished, which have fortunately survived to this day. During the 13th century, Gueze was still used in writing, but hardly at all in speaking, as Amharic gradually took over. The nature of the texts then changed, with theological texts being joined by more or less mystical writings such as The Legend of the Prophet Habakkuk or accounts of miracles, and above all royal chronicles from the reign of Amda Seyon I, from 1314 to 1344. It was during this period that one of the most famous collections of Ethiopian literature was composed, the Kabra Nagast ("Glory of Kings"), which brings together folk tales and traditions from several religions, but above all describes the mythical encounter between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. Translations were also evolving: instead of Greek, it was now preferred to give Guez versions of Arabic texts, even though these were basically of Coptic or Syriac origin. But this new golden age also saw the creation of a national identity: George, Ethiopia's patron saint, had a biography dedicated to him, and every new ruler had his exploits recorded. The 15th century, decidedly fertile, at last saw the emergence of the beginnings of an original literature, albeit still imbued with a religious connotation, with The Book of the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth, and even apocalyptic with the Fekkare Iyasus. By contrast, the coming century was to be a dry one, as Muslim invasions laid waste to the literary heritage. Only a few writings in defense of the Christian faith appeared, such as those by Enbaqom, a Muslim Arab convert to Christianity who, in Anqas'a amin ("The Door of Faith"), urges newcomers to follow his path. A second controversy arose between the Ethiopian clergy and the Jesuits. To ensure that their mutual arguments were intelligible (and convincing!) to as many people as possible, both groups began to use Amharic. After the departure of the missionaries in 1632, Guèze reappeared: new works were written in this language, including the theological encyclopaedia Hawi, and it was also used to flourish the "qenés", short poems of simple appearance concealing a hidden double meaning. The truth is, however, that Guez literature was experiencing its swan song, gradually fading away in favour of literature in Amharic, which was now - and definitively - to take over, opening up new perspectives.
Amharic literature
Amharic shares Chamito-Semitic origins with Guèze, as well as an alphasyllabic structure enriched with several consonants. Spoken by the majority of Ethiopians, it was the only official language until 1994, when it was forced to share this status with the country's hundred or so other idioms. In the written word, its democratized use marked a broadening of the themes explored by Ethiopian literature, although the first works remained in fields already covered in Guèze: Royal Chronicles of the reign of Tewodros II (1855-1868), translation of the Bible published in Cairo. Over time, however, literary genres began to diversify, a process marked by Western influences as varied as the introduction of printing at the beginning of the 20th century, the new ideas peddled by students of the inter-war period who had spent time in foreign universities, and the Italian colonization from 1936 to 1941. In a word, Amharic literature succeeded in doing what Guèze literature had failed to do: enter modernity by describing reality, first with the desire to create national unity as a patriotic response to external attacks, then by allowing itself social criticism, and finally by evoking exile.
Spearheading the movement, Afeworq Gebre Eyesus (1868-1947) is recognized as the author of the first Ethiopian novel, Libb Walled Tarik, published in Rome in 1908, the same year that poet Tèssèma Eshèté (1876-1964) recorded thirty-four songs on 78 rpm in Berlin. Heruy Welde Selassie was also a major figure in Amharic literature, evolving in all styles, from poetry to biography, essay to historical narrative, his most distinguished work being Wadaje Lebbe. Mekonnen Endelkachew (1890-1963), for his part, held important political positions, while devoting himself to writing plays, a destiny a world away from that of his six-year-old youngest daughter, Galanesh Haddis, who nonetheless acquired real renown thanks to her skill in qene, an art passed on to her by her father after she lost her sight in her early youth.
The twentieth century saw the birth of new generations who were brutally confronted with the events of the century. Kedebe Mikael was particularly prolific in the post-occupation period, inspiring more than twenty books. These writers also benefited from an international education, such as Mengistu Lemma (1925-1988), who attended London Polytechnic and met George Bernard Shaw, who influenced his subsequent career as a playwright, writing Telfo bä kissie ("Marriage by Abduction", 1957), his native country's first modern (feminist!) comedy. Although he used humor as a lever, his main aim was to explore the clash between tradition and new mores from a political angle. As for Sebhat Gebre Egziabhér, he became the first Ethiopian novelist to be translated into French with Les Nuits d'Addis-Adeba (Actes Sud), a grand fresco featuring the capital's night owls, from lost girls to belligerent drunks. It was in France, at Aix-en-Provence, that he was awarded a scholarship and took the measure of European literature. He then returned to Ethiopia, wrote for newspapers, contributed to an Amharic translation of Karl Marx, and further enhanced his reputation as a committed and innovative writer with Tekusat in 1997, Säbatägnaw Mälak in 1999... Still in the political vein, Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin's play recounting the life of Aboune Pétros, a bishop executed for opposing the Italian occupation, was censored. After a prison sentence, he fled to the United States, where he died in 2006 at the age of 69. Finally, Berhane Mariam Sahle Sellassie, born in 1936, also wrote about the war against Italy, using three languages: Amharic, English and Chacha, the dialect of the Gouragué people living in the south and south-west of the country.
Contemporary literature
Tsehay Melaku is not only deserving of the title of Ethiopia's first novelist, she is also a symbol of the turnaround in Ethiopian literature at the dawn of the new millennium. Since Qusa, her first book, was published in 1989 to great acclaim, she has never ceased to be involved in literary life and to question contemporary society, particularly with regard to the place accorded to women. Although still untranslated, she is the author of a dozen works, including a collection of poetry published in 2002, Yesimet Tikusat. Nega Mezlekia's autobiography Notes from Hyena's Belly(Actes Sud), recounting her childhood under Haile Selassie's regime, has gained international recognition. His story, written in English, won the Governor General's Award in Canada, where he settled in the 1980s. Tedbabe Tilahoun also published a text with a strong autobiographical accent, which he had to decide to publish in the United States for fear of censorship. Le Cantique des cantiques de Casantchis (published by L'Archange Minotaure) does not shy away from the daily life of Addis Ababa's prostitutes.
The work of Maaza Mengiste, who was born in the Ethiopian capital in 1971 before going into American exile at an early age, is also situated between here and there, history and the contemporary world. In literature, she has explored both sides of her reality, recounting the revolution of the 1970s in Sous le regard du lion (Actes Sud), and trying her hand at historical narrative in Le Roi fantôme (Éditions L'Olivier), offering a comprehensive panorama that has been widely acclaimed by international critics. Finally, we have the chance to discover in our own language the no less enlightening writings of Dinam Mengestu, who speaks of exile in Les belles choses que porte le ciel (Le Livre de Poche), Ce qu'on peut lire dans l'air and Tous nos noms (Albin Michel). If the warm welcome given to the poet Liyou Libsekal, born in 1990, is anything to go by, contemporary Ethiopian literature is still surprising and convincing.
