Love to the Grave

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Love until Death
AuthorHaddis Alemayehu
CountryEthiopia
LanguageAmharic
GenreTragedy
Published1968
PublisherMega Publishing & Distribution PLC
Pages552

Love to the Grave (Amharic: ፍቅር እስከ መቃብር) is an Amharic novel by Haddis Alemayehu published in 1968. It is one of the best known novels in Ethiopia and is considered a classic of Ethiopian literature. The novel gained popularity largely due to its widespread dissemination on Ethiopian radio during the Derg regime. It was featured on the popular radio program "Kemetsahifit Alem" (The world of Books) by host Wegayehu Nigatu. The author himself later praised Wegayehu for quote "giving life to the characters in the story" with his narration of the novel.[1] An English translation, titled Love Unto Crypt, was done by Sisay Ayenew.

Plot[]

The books centres on a romance between the beautiful Seble, daughter of a nobleman called Meshesha. She remains unmarried as nobody is considered noble enough for her, but when a tutor arrives they fall in love. Sahle Sellassie Berhane Mariam, commissioned by Heinemann to write a report on the book ahead of a potential translation wrote:

"Masterfully grafted to this love theme unfolds another, more serious story - the relation of the tradit1onal nobleman Meshesha and his peasant-tenants, a relation that ends in a peasants' revolt, and the subsequent humiliation of the captured Meshesha. The leader of the peasant revolt does not kill Meshesha. He prefers to make him a laughing stock to all who know him by capturing him alive and taking him to the provincial court...

Feker Eske Mekaber [Love Unto Death] is not only the longest Amharic novel so far written (about 106,000 words), but also the best in many ways. The language is clear and beautiful although sometimes ecclesiastical jargons that are inevitably sprayed here and there are difficult to understand for those readers (including myself) unfamiliar with Geez, the classical Ethiopian language. Otherwise the words are vivid and reveal the imaginative grasp of the author...

For the post war Ethiopian generation Feker Eske Mekaber is a social history; a social history that is groaning under the pressures of modernity, but that is not totally dead and buried.

A proper translation of the book into English and some other languages will reveal that the theme is closer to the social-setting of Europe and Russia of the pre-industrial era than to that of the present day Africa. It bears no resemblance to the themes developed by other [African] writers of today."[2]

Reception[]

The novel is one of the most famous in Ethiopia. It is particularly popular among those individuals who lived through the 1970s and 80's during the Derg regime, during which it was once narrated over the radio. A music video titled "Mar eske Twauf" by the award winning Ethiopian music star Teddy Afro based on this novel was released on YouTube.

References[]

  1. ^ Getachew, Fitsum (2 March 2015). "Haddis Alemayehu - the Unique Personality in Ethiopian Literature". All Africa.
  2. ^ Currey, James (2008). Africa writes back : the African writers series & the launch of African literature. Oxford: James Currey. ISBN 978-0-8214-1843-7. OCLC 230198710.

Relevant literature[]

Abakano, Bezaye. 2010. Dynamic Equivalence and Formal Correspondence in Sisay Ayenew’s "Love Unto Crypt". Addis Ababa University: MA thesis. Online access

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