Dr Sara Marzagora is a Postdoctoral Researcher and leader of the Horn of Africa case study. Her PhD thesis (SOAS, University of London 2015) was focused on the political thought of Amharic-speaking intellectuals in Ethiopia from the end of the 19th century to the late 1960s. She has published on Ethiopian intellectual history, Amharic written and oral literature, African critical theory and African philosophy.
Dr Sara Marzagora’s Spotlight on Mengistu Lemma
Full article available on Africa in Words.
Extract from: Spotlight on Mengistu Lemma
His work remains imbued by a strong sense of pride for Ethiopian history, whose value –and at times superiority– he never put in doubt. Mengistu was a prominent polemist in Ethiopia’s 1981-1983 debate over which literary language should be adopted by Ethiopian writers. He championed the literary use of Amharic over European languages – whose knowledge, diffusion and importance were (and still are) extremely limited in a non-colonised country such Ethiopia. His position, though, came across as ethno-centric. More than 80 languages are spoken in Ethiopia, remarked his opponent Sahle Sellassie Berhane-Mariam, and wouldn’t promoting Amharic over the others imply a form of Amhara cultural assimilationism? Mengistu responded in a conciliatory way: African-language writing should always be preferred, but at the same time writers are welcome to experiment with European languages, and encouraged to translate their works in English or French for the benefit of their fellow Africans.
He wrote over the theory of literature too, proposing in 1963 a first comprehensive categorization of Amharic metrical forms, and writing books about technical aspects of Amharic drama. He had a distinguished career as a civil servant, diplomat and professor in the Theatre Arts Department of Addis Ababa University.
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