Well, here we are with a mandate to talk about anything. Or anybody(TafaCH alubalta ineho meTalacihu!!). No? Can't we at least talk about our esteemed editor? No? Well, you're no fun!!

In all seriousness, I suppose the theme-de-wer is big enough and good enough. Literature. (Someone wanted to add the phrase "...and Art" but I guess the decision finally was that those two don't mix J).

Thinking about what to write, I was inevitably drawn to my earliest memories about books and reading. Unfortunately, it is about a certain nicely colored children's dictionary whose relative heft steadily "memenamen"ed as successive toddlers dragged, shred, pulled, threw, twisted, soiled, tore at it, perennially accompanied by my mother's voice saying "Inezih lijoch beqa meShafun zm blo mabelaxet new!!" But out of that perhaps came the love of books. They became friends I could do anything to. As I grew up, it wasn't what I could do to the book that mattered, but where it could take me.

My childhood memories have as much flights to the planet Mars in them as delivering Buhé Dabo all over town on those gray Hamlé days. Better yet, reading "Helliconia Spring" in the city bus on my way to deliver the Buhé Dabo, while all around me swirled the conversation and scenery of everyday Addis. (Don't know "Helliconia Spring"? That's all right - I have not met too many Ethiopian sci-fi fans.)

Helliconia's two suns are finally approaching their closest point, bringing Helliconia's 2500 year winter to a thaw Two giggling girls carry on breathy conversation in a scandalized tone - "Weyné !! Mn aynet balegé new!!" A tired looking Imahoy counts her mequTeriya, silently mouthing the Lord's prayer in G'iz A distinguished looking middle-aged man contentedly looks out the bus window in his kaported comportment The odor of buttered hair and the stink of a plastic booted foot duke it out with the aroma of cheap Arab perfume and the smell of still warm koba wrapped Buhé loaves.

It is not that I did not read "Fqr Iske Meqabr", "Ke Admas Bashager", "Manew ItyoPyawiw", "YeNa Sew Bedemasqo", "ArAya". I did, and relished every little bit of each book. But the fact is ,a voracious reader had many, many more English books to choose from. And the odd effect was to see Amharic masterpieces in English books and vice versa. Was "Manew ItyoPyawiw" written after Pearl Buck's "The Good Earth"? Did Berhanu Zerihun get his inspiration for the "Ma'Ibel" Trilogy from John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath"? Or did all these books just point to the sameness of the human experience?

Years, an ocean and a continent later, I find myself reading much less, but suffering the occasional urges to creatively write about some facet of my experiences, my fantasies, my alternate universes and my demons. I can honestly say that I have now a much, much better appreciation for those who write. It is hard work to craft a good plot, devise believable characters, establish a pace, maintain surprise and newness, while all the time agonizing that the one core message, pearl of wisdom, nugget of knowledge you so desperately want to pass along will get submerged in the craftsmanship you so desperately aspire to. And I know craftsmanship when I see what you write.

So perhaps you can answer this question for me.

-Yared

Hello Yared.

I am sorry to mabelashet our entry by starting off not being able to answer your opening inqoqilish but somewhere along our diskur I hope we will find the answer together. I agree that despite the temptation to mezlef and mamat our esteemed editors, we are lucky to be selected by SELEDA as this month’s single-browed children of sacrifice being offered up to the Life Diaries quoriT, because Literature is an easy theme to talk about.

Helliconia Spring in Hamlé in Haile Silassie’s time...and hoya hoyé season? I want to say the image is straight out of Salvador Dali’s head but surrealism is not the topic and the border between art and literature has been drawn by the powers that be silezih zm new, zm new.

So, Yared, which scent won I wonder? The qibé , the qunis, the D’Ors or the Dabo? We will have to ask as I'm certain that struggle is still going on...

My brother is an Ethiopian sci-fi fan, by the way, and after finishing Leon Uris' collection, I mistakenly wandered into his Isaac Asimov set anticipating more tales of Zionist Glory and nearly bored myself to tears. Rather than subject myself to the torture of his Dunes, I preferred my cousin’s interesting Amharic collections of novellas like "Biwodat New, BiTelat Anqo Yegedelat" and other scandalous love stories, were the tired little books which attracted my childish eyes. The cover was the inevitable picture of a heart being run through by a huge pen and bleeding ... bleeding...red, red ...

That was a long time ago.

Addis Alemayehu I did not discover until many years later and I regret missing the opportunity to read him while suffering at the same time from the famous "sight love". To read "Fqr Iske Meqabr" while being in love in Addis Ababa. Long luk papers of love letters delivered in secret received in surprise, the passionate agony of "sight love"...

You know, I hear to this day, you can go to an open air "mall" of poem writers in Addis, where they all stand around reading their poems aloud, copies of them in their bags ready for sale as soon as your have heard the verse and approved. Tailor-made giTim can also be ordered to be put on paper, carved on wood...You spoke of choices, these are some choices in Ethiopia I heard about.

As for Addis Alemayehu, he arrived for treatment outside Ethiopia and only the excitement in the community and the fans going to visit him made me curious enough to find out what the fuss was all about. I was by then cutting my teeth on the then required reading list of Baalu Girma's "Oromay" and "Ye Qey Kokeb Tirri". This reading came after a long gap that had last ended with "Lijinet Temelisso AymeTam" and the appropriately timed revolution which followed right after I finished the book in class.

I love "Ye Tangut MisTir" but it is, to me, laborious work and I envy the idea of checking out cassettes from the library where the book is recorded word for word and I can listen to it in Amharic without the hard work.

And then of course there is the ultimate "Cheat Book", very helpful to people like me in a hurry to catch up and make up for lost time..."The Black Lions". It's in English ... have you read it? It summarizes the lives and works of classical secular Ethiopian authors, Hiruuy Wolde Sillassie, Wolde Giorgis Wolde Yohannes, Tekle Hawariyaat Telke Mariam and his son Girmachew, Kebede Mikael , Mekonnen Endalkachew and Imiru Haile Silassie.

Left to my own devices, though, I would have to cite Paulos Nyonyo as the most contemporary author I remember and like, and in truth, my idea of Ethiopian literature when growing up was eagerly awaiting the latest "Police Inna Irmijaw" and reading it while leaning over and on the kibur zebenga and gabi-coated Gash Berhanu who guarded our gate.

My most recent Amharic cheat sheet, and a great literary achievement if not the closest thing we have to the start of a much-needed Amharic Thesaurus, is the red leather bound Marxist Leninist Dictionary. Amazing reading. Amazing words...I love it.

Many more English books to choose from? True ... Sameness of the human experience? BeTam ! Yemaytabel haq new ! (as it says in the ML Dictionary), but you talk about choice in the context where there is an abundance, and in Amharic we do not have a lot in print. So, if it’s Ethiopian Literature we are after, we are lucky, in the sense that it is possible to read everything on the current best seller list and in the past ones too probably.

My favorite is "The Double Edged Sword" and, lik indalkew, it could be a translation from English but adapted to Ethiopian realities. Two Somali Ethiopians recruited by the secret service for spying end up being double agents...Sima, yene wendim, forget "The Spy Who Came in From The Cold" and anything by Ian Fleming. This is gripping stuff even when you are a meserete timhirt fidel qoTari like me.

My point is, in the end its about quality and not quantity...mn libelih...you are right... Small is NOT beautiful, but I think Ethiopians know how to make small become something deep and meaningful and graceful and Ta'aM-full. Indew beTeqlalaw, "we got it like that" Yared, the struggle between communication and craftsmanship deserves a series of Life Diaries in its own right. Perhaps when the "AngisuN Amlikun" ones realize that there is in fact nothing to be demarcated and there is no border to draw between the two, which are in fact one...Literature and Art. "TafaCH alubalta eneho meTahulachiu" alalkim? Yihewa...you see? I AM fun after all.

Ishi, Yared, let me to have the Ta'am to quit while I'm ahead. Waiting for a clue, a hint, on your inqoqilish and leaving you with an ancient one from our childhood literary classes...

QUEBERO QUENNA... LEMIN?

EASY!!!!

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