Oromay

Oromay is an astonishing and compelling tale of revolution and betrayal. It is also the story of Tsegaye - witty, observant, and dedicated - who finds love at the same time as he discovers how dangerous his world really is. Written with breathtaking psychological precision, Baalu Girma’s novel is still frighteningly relevant today. Oromay is impossible to put down. As the last book ever written before Baalu Girma disappeared, what you have before you is also an uncompromising testimony to the power of words to outlast regimes. Oromay is a gift to a new generation of readers – Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King A startling, intimate and gripping saga of war-time Ethiopia turned topsy-turvy. In his brave dissection of rampaging power and evasive language, Girma recalls George Orwell and Aldous Huxley – Okey Ndibe, author of Foreign Gods, Inc. A novel widely believed to have cost its author his life, a prayer against war, oppression and the erosion of our humanity. David DeGusta and Mesfin Felleke Yirgu have done an outstanding job translating Oromay, giving the world access to one of the most important and enduring works of literature in Ethiopia – Djamila Ibrahim Reading Oromay sent me back to when I first watched Casablanca. It has the same surefire set of ingredients that draws you into the story and makes you empathise with its characters. Eritrea in the 1980s, war, junta, coffee shops where local spies and CIA agents drink coffee, a love story … A gripping novel that has ‘documentary’ flavour – Andrey Kurkov

Born in rural Ethiopia in 1939, BAALU GIRMA graduated from Addis Ababa University and later studied journalism in the United States. He rose to prominence in Ethiopia in the 1960s and 70s as both a journalist and novelist, eventually becoming a top official in the Ministry of Information under the Derg dictatorship. He wrote six popular and critically acclaimed Amharic-language novels: Beyond the Horizon, The Bell of Conscience, The Call of the Red Star, Haddis, The Author and his final novel, Oromay. His candid portrayal of the regime in Oromay caused a sensation and the government immediately banned the novel and fired Girma. Six months later, on Valentine’s Day 1984, he vanished under suspicious circumstances. No definitive evidence has emerged as to Girma’s fate, but the consensus is that he was murdered by the regime in retaliation for Oromay, which has since become one of Ethiopia’s most famous and best-loved novels. It is partly for his courage in renouncing the hated Derg that Baalu Girma and Oromay hold such an honoured place in Ethiopian cultural history.