Academic literature on the topic 'Amharic fiction'

The raw facts of memory, of longing for place, and the corresponding need to shape a narrative and to account for experience, create fundamental tensions in this piece of creative non-fiction. Childhood memories of the “Garden of Eden” underpin adult experiences as a researcher in what is now the UNESCO listed Kafa Biosphere Reserve in southwest Ethiopia. Research and writing about “saving” birthing women as an international development goal identified friction between visiting women in their homes, and remembering childhood encounters with women whose lives (and souls) needed to be “saved”. Struggling to find meaning, and writing about these experiences, offered a way to move on from other unhappy childhood memories. Drawing on descriptions of Tizita (Ethiopia’s anthem to nostalgia and longing) by Maaza Mengiste and Dagmawi Woubshet, and fernweh (longing for a place “far away from here”) by Teju Cole and Christiane Alsop, longing for home, ሃገሬ ናፈቀኝ (the Amharic term pronounced hagere nafekegn), guided more recent journeys accompanying women as they walked from home to the field, to collect water or firewood, to visit neighbours, to the market or to a health facility. Walking defines an approach to living whereby daily activities are framed by time and distance.

The aim of this research entitled Narrative Strategies in Selected Amharic Novels from 2000 until 2010 was to shed light on the relationship among form, meaning (content) and social milieuin establishing the textual and contextual features of fictional narratives. It mainly contends that it is possible to unravel the textual and contextual qualities of fictional narratives by studying form as a narrative strategy. In this research, form, when understood as a narrative strategy, is not only considered as a textual construct which motivates textual meaning but also regarded as a product of the social milieu from which the text emerges. Having this conception, form as a narrative strategy is investigated in selected Amharic novels published from 2000 until 2010 in view of expounding the artistic and thematic features of contemporary Amharic novels, endeavouring to fill the knowledge gap in Amharic literary scholarship about their literary features. The present research applies narratological approaches that range from classical to post-classical narratology. However, it dominantly uses post-classical conceptions of narratology as guidelines for its discussion. The dissertation comprises six chapters. The first one is an introductory chapter in which the research problems, goals and assumptions are explicated. Chapter two deals with the theoretical framework where the theoretical insight the research utilizes as a guideline is outlined and methodological issues are specified. The following three chapters focus on the analysis. In the third chapter, story is investigated as a narrative strategy in Yeburqa Zemeta (Burka’s Silence) (2000); in the fourth one, focalization is treated as a narrative strategy in Gerač.a Qač.eloč (Grey Bells) (2005), and in the fifth chapter, characterization is studied as a narrative strategy in Dèrtogada (Dertogada) (2010). The dissertation concludes with a chapter in which independent findings in the three analysis chapters are summed up and generalizations on the textual and contextual features of the present day Amharic novels are made.
Afrikaans & Theory of Literature
D. Litt. et Phil. (Theory of Literature)

Amharic literature has always occupied an important place in the history of the literary traditions of Ethiopia. Although this literature is believed to be strongly related to the politics of the country, there has been no study that proves this claim across the different political periods in the country. It would be ambitious to deal with all the literary genres in this respect. Therefore, delimiting the investigation of the problem is considered to be useful to filling the knowledge gap. Accordingly, this comparative research which investigates a representation of Ethiopian politics in selected Amharic novels across three political periods: 1930 – 2010 was designed. The objective of the research is to investigate the representation of Ethiopian politics in selected Amharic novels. The basic research question focuses on how these representations can be explained. An eclectic theoretical approach (the New Historicism, Bourdieu’s System Theory and the Critical Discourse Analysis) is employed to understand the representations. The main method of data collection focuses on a close reading of non-literary and literary texts. A purposive sampling technique is used to select the sample novels as the technique allows to select those that yield the most relevant data using some criteria. Based on the criteria set, sixteen novels are selected. The manners in which the political events represented in the novels are examined using different parameters. The parameters also look into the methods used in representing the political events and the time in which the events were represented, i.e. whether they are represented contemporarily, post-contemporarily or before the actual happening of the event. Having read the novels critically, the political events that took place in the three respective states are identified, analyzed and interpreted. The analysis mainly shows that different novels represented the political events in different manners: lightly or deeply, overtly or covertly, positively or negatively, contemporaneously or post-contemporaneously. Regarding the ‘how’ of the representations, it is observed that the critical novels, for instance, Alïwälädïm and Adäfrïs are covert and use symbols, direct and indirect allusions and other figures of speeches, and other techniques including turn taking, and size of dialogues to achieve their goals. Some political events are found to be either under-represented or totally un-represented in the novels. In some cases, same political events are represented differently in different novels at different times. Some novels that criticized the political events of the governments contemporaneously have been removed from market, republished in the political period that followed and exploited by the emerging government for its political end. There are some patterns observed in the analyses and interpretations of the politics in the novels. One of the patterns is that sharp criticisms on the events of an earlier political period are usually reflected in novels published in a new period. The critique novels of the Haileselassie government, for instance, Maïbäl Yabïyot Wazema, were published during the Darg period, and those that were critical of the Darg government, for instance, Anguz, were published in the EPRDF period. Another pattern observed is that there is no novel that praises a past regime, even despite being critical of a contemporary government. No novel written during the Darg period admired the Haileselassie period; and no novel written during the EPRDF period appreciated the Darg period. There are cases in which novelists who were critical of the contemporary Haileselassie and Darg periods, for instance, Abe and Bealu, respectively, ended up in detention or just disappeared and their novels, Alïwälädïm and Oromay, respecitely were banned from being circulated. Unlike the two previous political periods, the critique novels of the EPRDF period, for instance Dertogada, Ramatohara, and Yäburqa Zïmïta, have been published, or even republished, several times. Novels written during the Haileselassie period, such as Alïwälädïm, which were critical of the respective contemporary period, made their criticism covertly, using probes and imaginary settings and characters, while the critique novels of the EPRDF period, criticize overtly, and boldly. Generally, it could be concluded that the novels had the power to reflect history, and show human and class relationships implicitly, through the interactions of characters, story developments, and plot constructions, and the impact that politics has on the literature, and the influence of literature on politics.
Classics and World Languages
D. Phil. (Theory of Literature)