to form a new nation‐state that encompasses both old and new values. The creation of time‐depth, higher than the 3,000 years of the Solomon–Sheba–Menelik myth through the 5,500‐year‐old Menkobia, is the second contribution. Thirdly, the Menkobia–Mittk–Makuta tradition has now become a concretely “limitless future” through Makuta. (The old myth was missing this dimension.) As a result, the new myth has gained “eternity” through a higher time‐depth than Solomon–Sheba–Menelik.
The Politics of Authorship, Language, and Identity
In modern Ethiopian literary studies, there is a tendency to equate Amharic literature with Ethiopian literature. This comes from the fact that Amharic literature is the most vibrant strand of Ethiopian literature in its rich literary corpus, long written tradition, production volume and variety, and so on. Moreover, I strongly believe that the contribution of non‐Amharic mother‐tongue authors played a significant role for Amharic literature to receive such a status. One does not discuss Ethiopian literature without mentioning Tsegaye Gebre‐Medhin’s drama, modern poetry without Solomon Deressa, and prose fiction without Sibhat Gebre‐Igziabhier and Be’alu Girma. Gebre‐Hiwot Baykedagn’s critically acclaimed critiques, Assefa Chabo’s beautiful essays, and Sahle‐Sillassie Birhane‐Mariam’s celebrated Amharic translations of world classics are the jewels of the literature. The distinguished literary editor Amare Mammo has also contributed significantly to Amharic literary production. These individuals’ mother tongues are from different parts of the country – Oromiffa, Tigrinya, Guraginya, Gamo, Sidama. One might wonder whether their choice of the Amharic language was a conscious decision, a mere submission, or an imposition. Of course, there are several factors that contributed to the growth and maturity of the Amharic language compared to other vernacular languages. These factors include historical, social, and political reasons, which at times show disregard for these languages. I, however, hold the opinion that it is fallacious to simply assume that these authors’ choices are a result of ethnic hegemony and linguistic dominance. On this account, I will discuss the following points.
Firstly, almost half of the best canonical works of modern Amharic literature are written by non‐Amharic mother‐tongue authors. These authors are supremely literary; they have broken the old literary convention and established a new standard of artistic and humanistic discourse. Secondly, they are the most well‐read Ethiopians of their generation. They have demonstrated their high level of intellectual, ideological, and political consciousness through their works and other engagements. This is partly due to their exposure at a young age to different civil rights movements around the world. They have proven in their works that they would not submit to any hegemony. For instance, Baykedagn’s (1886–1919) brave request for the separation of the state and the national Orthodox Church was considered an “insane” gesture for the period. We have not seen a controversial avant‐garde Ethiopian poet like Deressa, who with his verses in Lijinet (Childhood, 1970) created a philosophical and stylistic radicalism. Gebre‐Igziabhier’s novels of serious literary merit, which were written in the early 1970s, were published thirty years later due to their unacceptable “obscene” style and pervasive and subversive thematic elements for the time. Gebre‐Medhin’s politically critical plays were censored in all three regimes. As Negussay Ayele noted, “[o]f thirty‐three plays Poet Laureate Tsegaye has produced between 1951 and 1997 more than half of them (eighteen) have been banned” (Ayele 2018). As mentioned earlier, Girma’s demise was one of the greatest mysteries in the country after Oromai (1983) exposed the system’s profound emptiness.
In my opinion, the reason these authors chose to write in Amharic is not only because they wanted to take advantage of distribution, growth, and maturity of their works, but also linguistically speaking by understanding the nature of the language. Several prominent philologists, linguists, historians, and sociologists (for instance, Haile 1969; Yimam 2017; Chernetsov 1993; Tamrat 1972) have argued that Amharic is an ethnically “neutral” and overarching language that has a national character compared to other Ethiopian languages not only in its geographical distribution, but also in its formal and semantic features. The authors’ use of Amharic is a conscious political engagement that is designed to promote a single national language to serve as a tool to bind the multi‐ethnic states to one united Ethiopia.
Gebre‐Medhin, Girma, Deressa, and even Gebre‐Igziabhier, whom many consider as neutral, display their strong pan‐Ethiopian sentiment through their views of the matter on many occasions. For instance, we find Gebre‐Igziabhier informing his biographer Zenebe Wella (2006, 145) that he possesses a supra‐ethnic attitude toward language:
I want you to believe me when I tell you this. Because I have read enough history books around this subject matter. Look –
Consider this, I am ethnically Tigre. And you are Gammo. What connects us? Amharic “lingua franca”; whose favor do you want me to reference to? Blessing to [Emperor] Menelik and his army. –French expression goes “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” In order to build an empire, it is necessary to break the so‐called ethnic and clan eggs that consider themselves as nation states. Menelik did exactly that. Because the time permitted it.
Menelik stood on equal footing with Italy and England. He formed his own empire. In the process, he created our lingua franca. He made it possible for you and me to communicate. It’s beautiful.
Some think that the reason for the authors’ choice of the Amharic language is to expand their reach. On the contrary, I think, had their intention been to increase the number of readers, they could have published their works in English because they possess high levels of English proficiency. This could even have protected their work from unnecessary censorship. Birhane‐Mariam, for instance, published his three English novels abroad to raise his readers and escape censorship (Molvaer 1997, 372–373). Deressa published English and French poems in a collection of works by different editors.7 Though Gebre‐Medhin wrote some poems and published a few plays in English, his firm belief was to translate his works in English: “By so doing he plans to tell ‘the fate of Africa’ to Africans in English” (Azeze 1985, 37). However, both Deressa and Gebre‐Medhin mainly produced their works in Amharic. Girma and Gebre‐Igziabhier mostly use Amharic except for a few of their articles published in periodicals. In the 1960s, when Gebre‐Igziabhier started writing his first novel, Letum Aynegalgn, he wrote the first sixty‐five pages in English before reading Worku’s Adefris, which made him realize the “power and beauty” of the Amharic language. He even abandoned English completely and wrote all his fictional works in Amharic (Molvaer 1997, 356; Wella 2006, 238). In this regard, the prominent literary scholar and folklorist Fekade Azeze, who is known for promoting the use of Amharic language in his writings, even points out the impact Gebre‐Igziabhier’s works would have if they were published in English:
After having read Sebhat’s [sic] recreated folktales, stories, wits and wisdom, etc., one really wonders why this writer whose use of the English language is probably the most lucid, clear, simple and beautiful of Ethiopian writers in English has not yet ventured to write and publish in English, a collection of short stories or a novel.
(1985, 36)
I think the discussion above can show that the author’s choice of the Amharic language is an ideological decision. This trend has continued even in today’s Ethiopia where multilingualism is echoing everywhere and in the heyday of ethno‐nationalism. This is evident in the works of the well‐known writer Endalegeta Kebede and one of the leading contemporary Ethiopian poets, Bedilu Wakjira. Wakjira’s poem “Ager Malet Yene Lij” (Nation Means My Child) is considered as a national anthem for the Pan‐Ethiopianist generation. In general, Amharic has served as the strongest connecting bond to create inter‐ethnic communication. As Haile (2006, 322) observes, “[e]ven ardent ethnonationalists” who still anchored in the “national oppression thesis” “who
