Remembering giants of Ethiopian history

Ethiopian literature – or what remains of it, has been given a whiff of fresh air by the publication of the first volume of Demakochu – a collection of profiles on Ethiopia’s greatest personalities Capital’s Abiy Demelew met up with the author Solomon Telahoun and discussed his new book. Experts.

Capital: how do you describe the inception of your book?
Solomon Telahun: The idea of writing this book has always been on my mind. Simret G.mariam, the co-writer of this book, came my way and urged sparked me on this idea at a historical moment. I thought about it for three days and finally decided to push it foreword by broadening the horizon to icons of different walks of life.
Capital: What is the core background?
Solomon: Basically I’ve seen a loose connection between yesterday, today and tomorrow in Ethiopia. But I always believe that the bond between the past, the present and the future should be strong enough so that we can learn from our icons of the past. So one way of treasuring these icons is to contain them in a book as literature is monumental. This is the core background for writing this book.
Capital: Do you consider yourself as a pioneer?
Solomon: No, I don’t. There are numbers of publications in this context. However, they are not only unorganized but are strewn everywhere. Our efforts on this book is to bring all stars to shine powerfully under a single sky.
Capital: How much effort has it taken to flash back 160 years?
Solomon: The more we went back in years; it was so hard to find the information we needed. The project forced us to involve a number of people, an enormous amount of energy, money and time. Investing all these together, we were able to acquire the profiles of twenty icons of various periods.
Capital: What were the main challenges?
Solomon: Finding the resources. Amazingly we found it easier to write about icons of the past than on those still alive. With different reasons, some of the existing individuals were not interested for their stories to be written. Resources are remote, expensive and sometimes inaccessible. We had to look for newspapers and journals on the internet. Getting some of the journals from the international universities and institutions requires a huge amount of money.
Capital: What were the criteria for the selection of the individuals?
Solomon: We have countless heroes in different walks of life and age categories. We took enough time for an intensive study of coming-up with a certain criteria. Then we drew up six points of a criterion of the selection process. They are: Pioneering, Uniqueness, Impact, Consistency, Scope and Endurance. I can not say that all of the twenty icons mark all points. In some ways we had to use a “more or less” kind of judgment.
Capital: What is the social value of this book?
Solomon: I have no doubt that, reclaiming back our history and history makers, gives a bigger value for the whole social development. We should never forget our past. We will learn from our achievements and the second is to learn from our failures so that we will never make the same mistake again. Our positive past is informational, transformational and inspirational by itself. Now during the millennium of Ethiopia’s renaissance, there is a new spirit of at all levels. In my opinion one of the big energizers of the new spirit should be reclaiming back the footprints of our characters. This gives value for everybody including the present and future generations. I don’t see a reason why foreigners always have to write about us. We should also start to write our own stories so that we build a strong generation.
Capital: Do you think the book is a contribution for Ethiopian literature?
Solomon: The last 14 pages of the book are assigned to sight different sources of our inputs. Besides the core value of the book, this also is a contribution by itself. This saves time and energy for anyone who wants to write a better book in the future as we have listed resourceful journals, magazines, websites, books and TV and radio features.
Capital: Some people say information is the most expensive resource to be found in Ethiopia. Do you agree?
Solomon: No. It is accessible as long as you exert energy. Working on this book, for instance, we could not find a picture of a certain icon. And the only place we could reach it was at a government bureau. We went there and followed. But as long as you work hard it is an accessible resource.
Capital: What makes Demakochu so unique?
Solomon: From the title itself and the graphics and content, we wanted it to be bright as brightness raises hope. The book is portable and unique in its presentation, size and content. This is only the first volume; hopefully the next volume will glitter more and set a standard quality for books in Ethiopia.
Capital: Do you have a plan to reach an international audience as well?
Solomon: Yes, that is the next plan…at least to adapt this book to one of the international languages. But the surprising thing is we find more books in different international languages than in Amharic. For some of our stories we had to use books written in other languages. For example we couldn’t find any written material about Aleka Kidane Wold in Amharic. But we found one written in French and we had to translate it to English and then Amharic. The same to Molvaer Reidulf’s book. Ten years ago this Norwegian writer came and wrote about the Ethiopian giants of literature in ‘The Black Lions’. This was a big resource for us too. The question remains -when are we writing our stories?
Capital: But what are the reasons for this?
Solomon: I have to study and research on the case to comment on it professionally. In my view, I see us having more interest for others’ than in others than for ours’. In other countries, people have interests for others while they still hold an interest for their own. I feel really sorry to see modernization / civilization being interpreted in a wrong way in Ethiopia. Being modernized or civilized has been taken to be European and American. But for me, being modernized or civilized means to be our own selves.
Capital: Now your book has been released, are you excited?
Solomon: For the moment yes. But already, I have started to think about the next volumes. I don’t think I will ever get satisfied until I see an encyclopedic series of Demakochu. This is my gift for my country and the new millennium.