The absence of professional publishing houses is hurting the growth of literature in our country.” Mulugeta Gudeta, veteran multilingual writer, author of fiction and non-fiction, editor and journalist.
The first time I came to know about Mulugeta Gudeta it was when he used to work for an English Private newspaper called The Sun some fifteen years ago when he was a contributor to the paper. I remember he wrote every week interesting articles on any sort of subject imaginable from the ‘art’ to the ‘economy’ from the ‘opinion’ to the ‘international politics’, from ‘social observation’ to ‘book review’ and what have you and I used to read them thoroughly. He wrote not only with his original name but also used various pseudonyms or pen names. He used to write for other English newspapers such as Fortune as well. Then I came to find out that he wrote also books, not only in Amharic but also in English and French! Mulugeta is someone who keeps a very low profile and would not enjoy or boast to expose himself to the public as some do. I guess this has not helped him come out as a major and renowned figure here. People normally advertise themselves very well and such promotion may have helped them raise their profile and in the end benefit from the sale of their work. But not so Mulugeta, I gather.
Mulugeta Gudeta is one of the few Ethiopian authors who have written books in multiple languages. Since he has studied at the French Lycee Guebre Mariam, he is fluent in French and has since written books for those who want to study French. Then I came to find out that he wrote a book called ‘Children of Poverty’, short stories that have their context here in Ethiopia, in poor neighbourhoods. Here is what the then Canadian Ambassador to Ethiopia John Schram wrote about his book after reading it.
“Whether as well-written, thought provoking stories in themselves or lessons about the hard facts of life, politics, people and death, “Children of Poverty” should be high on the list of essential reading for all those who love and want to understand Ethiopia and for those who simply want to know life as it is for most people everywhere.”
As a veteran who once was part of the Ethiopian youths movement Mulugeta was a witness to the various years of violence that characterized the Derg years, and he has written a lot on those days condemning them not to be back again. He argues that the current generation should learn from the mistakes of the past one, and not repeat the same errors. One book he wrote about those days is called ‘Evil Days’ written in English and there are a host of other books written in Amharic, almost twenty I think. Hence Mulugeta is a prolific writer in three languages and has been engaged also in translation works with various organizations, editing materials for publications and the like. He has worked on a regular basis for years as Editor, contributor and columnist for daily newspapers such as The Ethiopian Herald, The Monitor, and weeklies such as The Sun, Fortune, Journal and several others in the Ethiopian news media. Hence he is well known among the society for his timely observations on the daily events of Ethiopians’ life and society and new developments. But I doubt if he has the reputation that is commensurate with his qualities and achievements.
And yet like almost all Ethiopians in the field, he cannot be called a mogul in terms of riches that he should have earned from the sale of his books and publications. One cannot say that in this regard Ethiopian authors are fortunate. Mulugeta says: “Poverty is a formidable obstacle for Ethiopian writers. That is also why we don’t have professional writers or authors who live on the proceeds of their books. With present conditions, you cannot produce professional writers in one hundred years. Conditions are very tough for writers. They work in complete obscurity and no one cares about them. This is very stressful in itself. Writers are the most unfortunate people and this is true everywhere in the world. Only a few lucky ones achieve fame and fortune while most of them lead a difficult life.”
I was just imagining Mulugeta as an American or a European and we would find him to be a very rich man with no worries about how to publish or distribute his next work. His works would be sought by film makers and he would sell his books to publishing houses who would themselves find the way to publish and sell. However, here in Ethiopia the writer himself or herself has to find out how to publish the book and distribute. They have to wait for the income when the books are sold by distributors and it is a very hard circle. Except very few exceptions, writers of books and authors in general do not enjoy any reasonably substantial income from their fatigue or efforts. They may write good books but the market is still really sluggish. For a country of almost a hundred million people, it is very difficult to sell even three thousand copies in months.
Asked about how Mulugeta began writing he said: “I wrote my first poem in Amharic when I was 16 back at the Lycee Gebre Mariam School. I sent it to the then Bisrate Wongel radio and it was read. When I went to school the next day there was a great deal of excitement in my class and my friends and my Amharic teacher appreciated my effort and I was a kind of literary hero for them. I was good in French composition and my teachers often told me that I was ‘too literary’ for my age’.
Referring to those days when he was young and vibrant, he says: “I started to write fiction when I was at The Ethiopian Herald as a freelance journalist and I had plenty of time on my hand. One day I bumped into Gorky’s stories in the library, read them within a day and the next day I decided to write my own stories and I did it. It even came to me more easily than writing newspaper articles and I was younger and making some money that was useful and enjoyable at my age.”
Talking about his works he says he has so far written 14 published literary works and some 12 non-fiction and mostly educational books. He has published translations from English to Amharic and also written nine unpublished books of fiction and non-fiction that are gathering dust on his drawer. He said the most financially gratifying works were the educational works rather than the fiction ones. His book Ye Arada Lijoch (Children of Poverty) upon publication brought him 500 Birr in those days when his monthly salary was only 600 Birr, and he said that day he was so excited that he invited to a glass of beer all the people he met on his way back from Arat Kilo to Kera.
Asked about which hours of the day he preferred to write and how, and how much time he needed to finish a work, he responded by saying that he considered himself a fast writer and if he wanted to write a story he would write it right away or he would not write it in ten years! He said his first draft was often the best and he did not take a lot of time to write stories. He wrote ‘Ye Arada Lijoch’ in nine days, ‘Ye Enba Tebitawoch’ ‘Tear Drops’ in 21 days and ‘Chimbel’ Mask took him five months of hard work.
I asked Mulugeta to talk to me about the last work he presented to the international community in three languages. What is the title and what is it all about? Mulugeta answered by saying that normally he was not interested in doing what others were doing and the book I was referring to was entitled ‘Demon at the River and other Ethiopian tales in English, French and Italian”. He said initially he wrote the book in English and Professor Emilia Rochira a former teacher at the Italian School here in Addis translated three of them into Italian. He did the French translation of three stories and included them in the collection. He said he did not advertise it as it should have been and that it was a sort of weakness on his part.
Mulugeta proceeds: “The pleasure of writing is not in selling books but in writing itself. The excitement stops when the book is finished even if it is not published.” He says he has many books that are not published but that he would not stop writing because “I don’t think life is worth living if I don’t write. I feel miserable.” He continued the purpose of publishing the trilingual ‘Demon at the River’ was to bridge the gap between cultures and try to show aspects of Ethiopian ways of life to the outside world. He said he felt much more comfortable when he wrote in Amharic his mother tongue and English came second because it is a very expressive and simple language while French is very grammatical and literary and difficult to write in or translate.
Mulugeta is also a good reader besides being a good writer. Asked about his preferences and who inspired him most he said he liked to read Hemingway, Gorky, Dostoyevsky, Tolostoy, Balzac and Victor Hugo. He also admired Columbian Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chilean Isabelle Allende, Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, the Nigerian Chinua Achebe, Ngugi of Kenya, the German Gunter Grass, the American Saul Bellow and others. In Ethiopia he read Kebede Michael and Haddis Alemayehu but admitted that he preferred to read in English and French as their literature was very much developed as compared to ours. He regretted the fact that not even a single Ethiopian author did not make it into the international scene unlike even African countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt. Incidentally he said he was translating Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” into Amharic.
Asked whether he preferred to write fiction or true stories he said that the line between fiction and non-fiction was not so evident as many people would believe. Literature generally sprang from real life and one wrote only about things that would touch him or her profoundly or emotionally. There was no question of writing a story out of thin air, he asserted. “You take your stories from true life and then mold them in such a way that they sound and look not only authentic but also aesthetic.”
Mulugeta is one of the precious products of the generation that is now in their late fifties and early sixties. He has been a good witness of the history of the country during the last four crucial and meaningful decades. He still has a lot to narrate to us and we need to encourage these authors to do what is most interesting for them.
I asked him to rate current writers and compare them to those decades ago. He said according to him there was no author who could be qualified bad. Every author was good in his or her own way, he said. Writing takes a lot of effort, a lot of energy, commitment and time. Hence all those who were writing 40 years ago and those writing today both deserve respect and appreciation he added.
Twenty years ago there were more works of literature as there were professional publishers. He said had it not been for the Ethiopian Book Centre and more particularly to the then editor Amare Mamo, Mulugeta himself would not have been a writer now. “The absence of professional publishing houses is hurting the growth of literature in our country. There is not a single such publishing agency at present and this is regrettable to say the least. No country has produced great works of literature without the assistance of publishing agencies and professional editors.”
I then asked him about his short term or long term project. He said his short term objective was to publish books he already completed and his long term objective was to write all the books he had in mind and publish them and perhaps write a good book that would outlast him, a dream of any writer.
On readership and Ethiopian Writers Association, Mulugeta had this to say. “I don’t know how one can create more readers. What I know is that twenty five years ago there were more readers in Ethiopia than there are now. In 1989 I published a book called “Tear Drops” and it sold 20,000 copies in less than a year. Nowadays I publish 1000 copies and I have trouble distributing them in a year. I don’t think you can manufacture readers or book lovers. This is something that comes naturally.
The trouble in our country is that new entertainment technologies have invaded our society before we could develop a strong literary tradition and it is hard nowadays to tell the new generation to read books instead of use various devices … Unless we adopt technology, the number of readers is bound to dwindle even further. The same goes with libraries. The traditional libraries are bound to be overtaken by online books where you can get tens of thousands of titles and download free e-books by the touch of a key. Why do people travel to libraries while they can go to any internet outlet and read books on line?”
His thought about the Ethiopian Writers Association is that he did not think that writers should be members of an organization or any political party as it may compromise their creative freedom and independence and make them serve certain group interests. He thinks writers could better serve the truth and literature by remaining non-partisan, independent and free.