Novel
The Afersata
Synopsis
One night, in the thirty villages of Wudma, in Gurage country, Namaga's hut goes up in smoke. To unmask the arsonist, Namaga calls for the afersata, the traditional communal inquiry: all the men of the neighbourhood, whatever their rank, gather before the elders and must swear, on the lives of their children, that they are not guilty and know nothing. Through this inquiry, the novel shows a peasant community in the Ethiopia of Haile Selassie.
Context
The novel appeared in 1969 in London from Heinemann, in the African Writers Series, five years after Shinega's Village, the author's first book, written in Chaha and translated into English by Wolf Leslau. The afersata in it draws on a real institution of Gurage country, and the book describes corruption, insecurity, poverty and sharecropping, as well as the lower rank of craftsmen and the exclusion of women from the assembly. A dissertation of Addis Ababa University counts the author among the most widely read Ethiopian writers in English, and Mulugeta Asnakew studied the novel in 2021.
Who it is for
For discovering the customary justice of Gurage country in an Ethiopian novel written in English, not translated into French.
Prizes and reception
Debebe Seifu faults its poorly constructed plot, but praises the simplicity and clarity of its English.
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