Novel
Love Unto Crypt
ፍቅር እስከ መቃብር
Haddis Alemayehu · 1966
Synopsis
In feudal Gojjam, Bezabih, the only son of a poor man and a woman of high lineage, grows up under the weight of his mother's religious vow and becomes a Church scholar. Hired as tutor to Seblewongel, daughter of Fitawrari Meshesha, a lord obsessed with his rank who finds no suitor worthy of her, he falls in love with his pupil, who loves him in return. Against the father's pride and the order of the province, the two young people find an ally in Gudu Kassa, a relative of the girl, whom his conscience has put beyond the pale of his own people.
Context
The novel appeared in 1958 of the Ethiopian calendar, that is 1965 or 1966, from the Berhanenna Selam presses in Addis Ababa. It is set in Dima, where the author had completed his qene studies, and depicts a society of lords, farmers and servants governed by lineage and by Orthodox faith. Recent criticism disputes that it should be read as a simple love story and sees in it a novel of freedom. Its serialised reading on the radio, under the Derg, brought it most of its popularity; Sisay Ayenew translated it into English in 2005, and Ethiopian television adapted it as a series in 2024.
Who it is for
A long novel, in Amharic, available in French since 2021 and in English since 2005. The French edition renders the poems inserted in the narrative in rhymed verse and provides a glossary.
Prizes and reception
Awarded the Haile Selassie I Prize, regarded as the classic of the modern Amharic novel and included for decades on Ethiopian secondary-school syllabuses.