Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin

Born on he small mountain town of Boda, Ethiopia on this day in 1936, Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin was one of his country’s most important literary figures and the best known.

Considered by many to be Ethiopia’s greatest playwright, Tsegaye had earned a degree in 1959 from the Blackstone School of Law in Chicago but his interests soon turned to drama.

Even though he wrote in English, he is best known for his use of his own Ethiopian languages. Accounts state that he wrote more than 30 plays, most in Amharic, Ethiopia’s official language, and translated many Western works into Amharic, including those of Shakespeare, Brecht and Molière.

His Amharic plays focus mainly on contemporary Ethiopia, particularly the plight of young people in urban settings and the need to respect traditional morality, as in Crown of Thorns (1959). Oda Oak Oracle (1965), which is said to be his best-known verse play written in English, is based on Ethiopian history and focuses on religious conflict.

Later in the 1960s, he decided to write about the common man, rather than religion and royalty, and this marked the beginning of modern Ethiopian theatre.