Baalu Girma

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 honored place in Ethiopian cultural history.