In the dooms day of childhood, most of us remember what our soul desires most. We are indebted former nation wide radio- Ethiopian radio which housed a weekly program of ‘Ke Metsahift Alem- to mean ‘from the Book World’ which showcased to transmit a narrated novel. To our surprise, we all misses the program every week and make the development a talk around a coffee table, none other than like we had for football tournament of now a days.Yes, the radio narrator has the enigmatic aura to attach the audience with the published novel.It is like once a blogger on ‘AfricaInWords.com’ dubbed it as ‘Books in Your Ears’. Perhaps, the job of narrating a book is fulfilled either under a single narrator or a multiple narrators’ task. The job is not a simple task with lesser marginal utility.
On last year in August 2017, it is our fresh memory that the HOHEAwards recognized even the role of narrators for the popularization of novel published. Hence, atleast out of the live narrator HOHE awarded DejeneTilahun for whom HOHE felt the society is indebted for his decades long narrator role on various local radio. Consensually, one can find the move as hardly objectionable as to alternatively to give the HOHE trophy to some other contender. Indeed the recognition was entirely without contest to only help the surprising awe of the awardees and the audience. We remember him, among other things, to narrate the French dime‘ Less Meserable’ Translated as Menduban, Qal (to mean ‘the Promise’) and manymore can be counted.
Narration is not a simple technique as the rank and file simplifies as he undertook his monologue very easily. To the discomfort of the narrator the diversity of the characters is makes the narration a difficult job as they are gender, age and status above all, narration is a challenging task that require the strong rigor of the radio artist. More often than not, radio curators stressed that radio peculiarity is found in its broadcast, which requires fulfilling what is missed from the visual image of telecast and webcast.
Here one can recount how the society remembers the grand role of narrator Wogayehu Negatu for the Ethiopian dime novel ‘ Fiqir EskeMekabir- to mean ‘Love unto the Grave’. The adult population still remembers their impression when Wegayehu narrates to the extent of replaying the melodized introduction of the Program. He was the legendary artist the year long serial narration of the dime ‘Fiqer EskeMekaber’. Indeed, the late Wogayehu was marvelous when he manage the assignment to imitate the old man moralist-Bezabeh to the protagonist- Seblewongel. Moreover, the author- Haddis Alemayehu himself recognized this exceptional role of the narrator with his historic excerpt ‘ Wogayehu reincarnated the soul of Fiqir EskeMeqabir which I couldn’t do literally’.
Today we had many air flights where passengers have options to hear audio book just in a manner of Movies and Music clips. Courageously enough, Ethiopian Air line used to showcase Madiba’s ‘Long Walk to Freedom’. The autobiography was narrated by a single artist whose challenge is a bit lesser than the several characterized epic novels. In fact, it is ideal to commend that transport facilities ought to have the stock of narrated Amharic book for local passengers.
In a nutshell, HOHE awards still reiterate its contention of promoting the business of novel narrators and the agency of narrator artists. Undoubtedly, literary podcasts are highly demanded platforms for published novels. Hence blind persons can be embraced since they have the access for audio file. Passengers can tune the audiotape to hear the audio novel off their choice. Perhaps, one has to be precautious enough to reserve the pool of novel narrators in par excellence. Otherwise, without the good narrator, we don’t safely channel out from ‘ the books in our eyes’ into ‘books in our ears’. Good day!
(This article is contributed by HOHE Awards. HOHE Awards started in 2017, is an annual award presented for an author of a distinguished book possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues)
