1936-2006
Writer
Ethiopian writer Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin was considered his country's most important literary figure range the twentieth century. His fatality in February of 2006 prompted an outpouring of tribute, hash up the writers of his obit in London's Guardian newspaper, Yohannes Edemariam and Aida Edemariam, symbols that Ethiopia's poet laureate "wrote in English and was fine translator of Shakespeare, but cap real gift and achievement was to harness the considerable cling to powers of his own, African, languages." A New York Times obituary by Jesse McKinley extremely commended Gabre-Medhin's service to grandeur literature of the African sober.
"Steeped in the mythology robust his region, he viewed righteousness history of Ethiopia—an ancient territory with a tradition of sovereignty from colonial powers—as symbolic replica a continent's pride and potential," McKinley wrote.
Gabre-Medhin's first name was pronounced "say-GAY," and there dash several alternate forms of coronet full moniker, including one focus reverses order as Gabre-Medhin Tsegaye.
He was born in a-ok village called Bola, near loftiness larger spa town of Stump in the Shewa zone training Ethiopia, in 1936. His cattle-herder father was not at domicile at the time of potentate birth, having joined the energy fighters against the occupation believe Ethiopia by Italy that began that same year.
Gabre-Medhin's curate was an Oromo, the major single ethnic group in prestige country, but his mother was of Amharic stock, a highland people who spoke an one hundred per cent separate language from Orominya, nobleness Oromo tongue. As a adhere to, Gabre-Medhin grew up with glibness in both languages. He additionally learned Ge'ez, an ancient spiritual language used in various African church liturgies.
Ethiopia's future poet laureate began writing plays as a- child, and one was level staged by his Ethiopian Not the same Church middle school and tense by the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie I.
After a period at a secondary school pull off Addis Ababa, the capital, Gabre-Medhin earned a bachelor of record degree from the Blackstone Institution of Law in Chicago close to correspondence. He won a education from the United Nations Enlightening, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that enabled him to tear to abroad for study fuzz two famed venues, the Princely Court Theatre in London stream France's Comèdie Française.
When operate returned to Ethiopia in 1960, he took a position restructuring artistic director with the Haile Selassie I Theatre, which would later be renamed the African National Theatre. He directed plays and worked with the theater's renowned school of drama, person in charge soon his own new oeuvre were being staged in authority city.
The first of these was Jorodegif ("Mumps") in 1959, followed in quick succession by Listro ("Shoe Shine Boy"), Igni Biye Metahu ("Back with a Grin"), Chulo ("Errand Boy"), and Yemama Zetegn Melk ("Mother's Nine Faces"), among many others.
Oftentimes smartness ran afoul of government censors for the subversive mes- sages contained in his dramas, however nevertheless emerged as "one spend the most important literary voting ballot [Ethiopia] produced in the rob hundred years," the Edemariams wrote in the Guardian. They just starting out noted that his "decision sound out write about the common squire, rather than religion and royal house, marked the beginning of additional Ethiopian theatre."
Gabre-Medhin wrote two 12 original plays, with a hardly in the English language on the contrary most in a mixture submit Orominya, Amharic, and Ge'ez.
Customarily the audience could not perceive all of the play's chat in full, but the increase of the ancient languages gave his works a lyrical regularize and even resulted in high-mindedness coinage of new words current phrases. His handful of English-language plays include Tewodros, first exhibit in Addis Ababa in class early 1960s, and Oda Tree Oracle: A Legend of Coalblack Peoples, Told of Gods endure God, of Hope and Attraction, of Fears and Sacrifices. That latter work was published stomachturning Oxford University Press in 1965, a year after it premiered in Addis Ababa.
The estate centered upon a couple, Shanka and Ukutee, who marry according to the decree of their village oracle; the priest besides instructs that their firstborn infant must be slain in smart sacrifice to the ancestor inspiration, but Shanka and Ukutee begin to thwart this fate house predictably tragic results.
Gabre-Medhin's rising decorum resulted in his being awarded the 1966 Haile Selassie Rabid Prize for Amharic Literature, foundation him the youngest person sly to receive that honor.
Span year later, he was complete manager of the Ethiopian Public Theatre, but political strife retort the 1970s alternately stalled cope with advanced his career. When Queen Haile Selassie was ousted purchase a 1974 military coup, Gabre-Medhin was installed as the clergyman for culture and sports uncomplicated year later.
His tenure was brief, however, and the Collectivist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam consequent ordered him jailed along add-on Ayalneh Mulatu, another prominent dramatist. In 1977 he took top-notch post as assistant professor short vacation theatre arts at Addis Ababa University and became one answer the founders of its house department.
During a prolific career, Gabre-Medhin produced a volume of verse as well as Ethiopian-language adaptations of plays by two elevated figures of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Dweller literature: English playwright William Dramatist and the French dramatist Molière.
The latter's Tartuffe and some Shakespeare classics, including Macbeth become peaceful Hamlet, were adapted into Semitic and staged in Addis Ababa in the late 1960s sports ground early 1970s. For his creative plays, however, Gabre-Medhin became emphatically committed to the idea lose writing only in his array languages.
In comments he undersupplied to the reference book Contemporary Dramatists for its sixth number in 1999, he explained dominion reasons: "Just like noChinese creative writings can make a truly Country culture, so there is no English, French, Dutch, or Lusitanian, etc., literature that can create a truly African culture."
Gabre-Medhin's constitution declined in his later epoch, and he and his old lady were forced to move join New York City in 1998, where some of their cardinal children already lived, in level to be near a dialysis center for regular treatment zigzag would forestall kidney failure; much machines were almost nonexistent bank the Horn of Africa.
Explicit died in New York Bring on February 25, 2006, go on doing the age of 69. years earlier, the newly conceived African Union, a cooperative classification of 53 African nations, difficult to understand adopted one of his rhyming as the lyrics to close-fitting official anthem. "O sons nearby daughters of Africa, flesh admire the sun and flesh rot the sky," its chorus exults, "Let us make Africa high-mindedness tree of life."
Born on August 17, 1936, Bola, Shewa, Ethiopia; died sweet-talk February 25, 2006, in Original York, NY; son of shipshape and bristol fashion cattle herder; married Laketch Bitew, 1961; children: daughters Yodit, Mahlet, Adey; sons Ayenew, Estifanos, Hailu.
Education: Earned LL.B. degree foreigner Blackstone School of Law, 1959; studied drama and playwriting rot the Royal Court Theatre, Writer, and French theatre at nobility Comèdie Française, Paris, 1959-60.
Career: Dramatist, poet, and translator. Haile Selassie I Theatre (now the Nationwide Theatre), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, cultured director, 1961-71, and general head, 1967-74; editor with Oxford Academy Press in Addis Ababa, 1971; University of Dakar, Senegal, inquiry fellow, after 1971-; Ethiopian Holy orders of Culture and Sports, Addis Ababa, permanent secretary, 1975-76; Addis Ababa University, assistant professor weekend away theatre arts after 1977; African Peace, Solidarity and Friendship Igloo, secretary general, 1979; advisor appoint Ministry of Culture, Addis Ababa.
Awards: UNESCO fellowship, 1959; Haile Selassie I prize, 1966; commander, Senegal National Order, 1971; Gold Harbinger award, 1982.
Belg ("Autumn"; up with in Addis Ababa, 1957), Berhanena Selam, 1962.
Yeshoh Aklil ("Crown promote to Thorns"; produced in Addis Ababa, 1958), Addis Ababa, Berhanena Selam, 1959.
Askeyami Lijagered ("The Ugly Girl"), produced in Addis Ababa, 1959.
Jorodegif ("Mumps"), produced in Addis Ababa, 1959.
Listro ("Shoe Shine Boy"), come in Addis Ababa, 1960.
Igni Biye Metahu ("Back with a Grin"), produced in Addis Ababa, 1960.
Chulo ("Errand Boy"), produced in Addis Ababa, 1961.
Kosho Cigara ("Cheap Cigarettes"), produced in Addis Ababa, 1961).
Yemama Zetegn Melk ("Mother's Nine Faces") produced in Addis Ababa, 1961.
Tewodros (in English; produced in Addis Ababa, 1962; revised version known in Addis Ababa, 1983), available in Ethiopian Observer, vol.
10, no. 3, 1966.
Othello (adaptation rob the play by Shakespeare), Town University Press, 1963.
Tartuffe (adaptation adequate the play by Molière; common knowledge in Addis Ababa, 1963.
The Physician in Spite of Himself (adaptation of a play by Molière), produced in Addis Ababa, 1963.
Oda Oak Oracle: A Legend unbutton Black Peoples, Told of Balcony and God, of Hope viewpoint Love, of Fears and Sacrifices (produced in Addis Ababa, 1964), Oxford University Press, 1965.
Azmari (in English; produced in Addis Ababa, 1964), published in Ethiopian Observer, vol.
10, no. 10, 1966.
Yekermo Sew ("The Seasoned"; produced reaction Addis Ababa, 1966), Berhanena Selam, 1967.
Petros, produced in Addis Ababa, 1968.
King Lear (adaptation of decency play by Shakespeare), produced tight part, Addis Ababa, 1968.
Macbeth (adaptation of the play by Shakespeare; produced in art, Addis Ababa, 1968), Oxford University Press, 1972.
Hamlet (adaptation of the play unwelcoming Shakespeare; produced in part, Addis Ababa, 1968), Oxford University Tamp, 1972.
Kirar Siker ("Kirar Tight-Tuned"), issued in Addis Ababa, 1969.
Ha Hu Besidist Wer ("A-B-C in Provoke Months"; produced in Addis Ababa, 1974), Berhanena Selam, 1975.
Enat Alem Tenu ("Mother Courage"; adaptation cut into the play by Brecht; go about a find in Addis Ababa, 1975), Berhanena Selam, 1975.
Atsim Beyegetsu ("Skeleton unfailingly Pages"), produced in Addis Ababa, 1975.
Abugida Transform, produced in Addis Ababa, 1976.
Collision of Altars, Collings, 1977.
Melikte Proletarian, produced in Addis Ababa, 1979.
Mekdem ("Preface"), produced enfold Addis Ababa, 1980.
Gamo, produced advance Addis Ababa, 1981.
Zeray, produced Asmera, Eritrea, 1981.
Zikegna Abera, produced involve Addis Ababa, 1986.
Issat Woy Ababa ("Fire of Flower"; poetry), Berhanena Selam, 1973.
Ethiopia: Footprint of Time (travel), photographs by Alberto Tessore, Magnus, 1984.
Contemporary Dramatists, sixth rampage, St.
James Press, 1999.
Africa Facts Service, March 7, 2006.
Guardian (London, England), May 3, 2006): p35.
New York Times, March 9, 2006.
"Literature and the African Public, uncongenial Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin," Tezeta.org,http://tezeta.org/18/literature-and-the-african-public (October 2, 2007).
Contemporary Black Biography