Novel
Oromay
Baalu Girma · 1983
Synopsis
December 1981. Tsegaye Hailemaryam, a well-known journalist of the state press, arrives in Asmara to direct the propaganda of the Red Star campaign, which is meant to put an end to the Eritrean insurrection. Caught between the orders of his superiors, a fiancée who stayed behind in Addis Ababa and his love for Fiammetta, his doubts take hold.
Context
The author had been sent to Eritrea for this operation, carried out by the Derg in 1982 against the insurgency, and he stayed there. Official propaganda presented it as a success; he regarded it as a failure, and the army had to withdraw. He changed the names of the officials he knew personally: the man who headed the party commission in Asmara becomes Solomon Betre-Giorgis, and three other dignitaries remain recognisable under assumed names. The book was published by Kuraz, in Addis Ababa. An English translation appeared in 2025, forty years later.
Who it is for
In Amharic. It helps to know that the word in the title is borrowed from the Italian oramai and, in Eritrea, stands for what is henceforth without purpose.
Prizes and reception
Banned within the week of its publication and destroyed by order, it circulated clandestinely and became the most famous novel of Ethiopia.