Yves-Marie Stranger, author of the book ‘A Gallop in Ethiopia, Wax, Gold and the Abyssinian Pony,’ provides a window into his experiences and perspectives on Ethiopia. Stranger, who lived in the country for 15 years, discusses the inspirations and themes behind his literary work, which aims to capture modern Ethiopia’s rich cultural tapestry and complex realities. His upcoming book is titled The Hornbook of Pêro da Covilhã.
In A Gallop in Ethiopia Stranger draws on personal anecdotes and observations to offer a tentative exploration of ‘how Ethiopia works and what doesn’t work and why.’ He acknowledges the challenges of representing Ethiopia’s diversity and the various layers of history, and culture, asw well as the rapid modernization, all factors that shape the country.
This interview with Capital’s Groum Abate also dives into Stranger’s views on Ethiopia’s ambitious industrialization plans and the comparisons drawn to China’s development model — a topical subject in Addis Ababa. Throughout the conversation, Stranger’s nuanced and reflective approach highlights the difficulties and rewards of attempting to make sense of Ethiopia’s multifaceted identity as an outsider-turned-insider. Excerpts:
Capital: Can you tell us about your new book?
Yves-Marie Stranger: A Gallop in Ethiopia, Wax, Gold and the Abyssinian Pony is published with Amazon. This means that if you buy it in America, it’s printed in America. Whatever. In Europe, it’s printed in Poland or somewhere. Sadly, Amazon does not yet deliver to Ethiopia! But I’m very happy to announce that the book will soon be on sale here, in Addis Ababa.
As I have the rights myself, I will print a few hundred copies and have them delivered to BookWorld (Shama Books), here in Ethiopia. We just finalized a deal yesterday. I’m thrilled about this. It’s not that I’m earning anything. I mean, book publishing — at the best of times, you’re happy if you’re not losing money! With Amazon, it’s good because you don’t have to front the printing costs yourself, it’s essentially Print on Demand…But I’m thrilled that the book will be readily available in Ethiopia. It’s a bit sad to have a book like this on sale in Europe and America, and not in Addis Ababa. That’s a bit silly.
Capital: What inspired you to write your book about Ethiopia, and what themes does it explore?
Yves-Marie Stranger: In part, it’s a memoir of the years I lived here. And getting to know Ethiopia, learning Amharic, starting a horse-riding company, and organizing horse treks. It’s about Ethiopian culture and the psychological makeup of Ethiopians. It’s a medley of souvenirs, and then, based on these souvenirs and stories and anecdotes that I experienced, it’s a tentative attempt to explain how Ethiopia works and what doesn’t work and why. The hurdles that I encountered along the way and the mishaps that many foreigners experience… This small book is my attempt to see some light in all of that. I wrote this after leaving the country, and I don’t think I could have written it while I was still here because, you know, I was here for fifteen years, but it was good to write it outside of Ethiopia, to have that distance, to be able to look at it dispassionately, not being involved anymore.
Capital: How would you describe Ethiopia and what do you hope readers will take away from your book?
Yves-Marie Stranger: That’s a difficult one because I answered that question in quite a few pages and in a relatively literary style. The book has a rather elusive style, making use of the sort of wax and gold approach in which you say something but you’re really pointing to something else. The book is on the short side but while it’s not very complicated to read, you do have to read between the lines!
You can’t spend fifteen years in Ethiopia, survive, and not become a little bit Ethiopian in the way you think… And so I’m a little bit like that now, myself. What is Ethiopia? I don’t know. It’s a land area of one million, one hundred square kilometres in the Horn of Africa… That’s the straightforward answer. But Ethiopia is an incredibly complex place made up of different layers – historical, cultural, and more. I just came back from Harar yesterday. Harar and Addis Ababa are completely different entities – the people, the way they speak, do business and drive. It’s just different, completely different. The difference between a Tigray, an Oromo from Shoah, an Oromo from Wolega, an Ahmara from Hararge is huge — they all have their own cultures, languages, and everything. Ethiopia is a kaleidoscope.
Then you have the layers of history – ‘Auld’ Abyssinia, modern Ethiopia, Menelik, Haile Selassie, the Derg era followed by Meles and the EPRDF – all of this adds to it. And then you have, of course, the fact that it’s a country that’s been modernized in an incredibly short time, at breakneck speeds that sits on top of something that was very traditional — stagnant in some ways, but also very rich and beautiful. But certainly dormant, closed off. Most revolutions never happen (or when you notice it, it’s all around you, already passed), but in this case, the increasing pace of restructuring of the physical infrastructure of ‘Africa’s capital’ leaves you reeling…Perhaps, as William Gibson famously quipped, ‘the future was already here’— just ‘unevenly distributed’?!
Places like Ethiopia, which were until ‘yesterday’ relatively unconnected to the world, have now been hooked up at lightning speed: the very rollout of electronic mobile payments, on a scale the ‘developed’ world can only dream of emulating, is a case in point (as is the setting up of the new Digital ID — Ethiopia is like a country-sized lab, where measures are tested for the larger world.).
Marx once said capitalism ‘dissolves all it touches, and everything sold disappears into mid-air’, but today, in Ethiopia (and tomorrow everywhere), it is the speed of electrons that is dissolving the very fabric of society, degrading meaningful relationships into electronic transactions (monitored, taxed).
This eruption of modernity is tearing up all of these social bonds, creating some interesting new things, and adding another layer of complexity on top of everything else. I’m sorry if I’m not giving you a straight answer because I don’t have one. You should read the book! (Not that it has all the answers, but it does provide a few). I quip in the book about that eternal answer you’re always getting in Ethiopia: ‘aytawekem’ (‘it isn’t known – nobody knows’), but today’s answer seems to be ‘system ayseram’ (‘the system’s down’), which is provided as a universal retort to all queries…and a drive down the capital’s thoroughfares feels like being projected into the 1982 futuristic film TRON, in which a computer programmer is trapped inside his computer circuit boards!
Ethiopia remains an incredibly complex thing. I think when I arrived here, it took me maybe two or three years to start to understand things a little bit. And mind you, just a little bit, not a lot, a bit, you know. And then, what, fifteen years is a long time. I did many activities here, from writing, and journalism, to books, tourism, interpreting, and all sorts of different things. That brought me in contact with huge numbers of different Ethiopians from all walks of life, of course. I can’t presume in this very short book to be giving any definitive answers. It’s my answer and it’s a possible response. And also, as I say, because you can read between the lines a lot’s probably open to quite a bit of interpretation, based on the reader’s approach.
I mean, that said, I’ve had quite a lot of feedback from Ethiopians and foreigners. And overall, it’s been very positive. It’s annoyed a few Ethiopians. But you can’t write something about Ethiopia and not upset Ethiopians — it’s not possible! Whatever you say, if you say black, if you say white, it doesn’t matter. But at the same time, I’ve had many Ethiopians who found it very interesting as an approach, as an analysis. And a few foreigners who’ve, I mean, one or two who had spent time here and said to me, well, it’s not 100%, but it clinched something for me. I got something that I’d been trying to grasp for a long time. Not to be too modest, let’s say that I hit the target not too far off.
Capital: How do you view Ethiopia’s ambitions to industrialize and its comparison to China’s development model?
Yves-Marie Stranger: That’s a very relevant topic to today’s Addis Ababa. And, well, you know, as it started, I don’t know if it’s Meles and company who started this. I remember The Economist back then was pushing this idea. The rising continent… so they would do all these comparisons between Africa and China, South Korea, and all that. I think this was encouraged by the Ethiopian government as well. They fell in love with the Chinese model because they saw that they were developing, and getting rich. And so there was this dream, this plan of setting up all these industrial parks.
Being the next place where we would make cheap shoes, then make some money and then start moving up — bootstrapping, as they all did. The Chinese, the Vietnamese, that’s how they started off making cheap stuff then they’re making mobile phones and today they’re producing electric cars. I think there was a lot that was seen as a possibility and the Ethiopians loved the model, and when I say Ethiopians, I mean the government. I mean, all governments, want to control stuff. That’s normal, that’s their aim. And I think they liked the Chinese model because it had such a strong government and they were able to stay in control. Whereas from the Second World War up to the 90s, the only model you know, was Europe, was America. And the Europeans, the Americans, they meddle a lot. You know, it’s like ‘be more democratic.’ ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that. Pass this law…’ whatever. Which is extremely irritating, I’m sure. And that’s how we got to the title ‘Ethiopia, tomorrow’s China,’ Was it The Economist’s title? Was it in the Guardian newspaper? I can’t remember. It probably says in the book. I can’t remember exactly.
Now, of course, I think of course that it remains a very elusive target and I think the comparison is very exaggerated as I think it’s proven to be. I’m not sure how Ethiopia’s exports are doing these days. I haven’t seen the numbers. I don’t think they’re fantastic. And I think that long term, but I mean, you know, hindsight is 20-20. I didn’t believe in it back then, but now, you know, with COVID and the disruption that we had to trade and with the increased fragility of sourcing petroleum and energy. I’m not at all sure that there’s going to be, you know, for example, the industrialization of China, or better put, the partial industrialization, because it’s only the coastal areas of the country. Most of China is still really quite poor, but that was based on coal. They burnt coal like there’s no tomorrow. Coal is great! It’s cheap. It’s easy to use.
But in Africa, in Ethiopia, well, they don’t have that. And so, hydroelectricity and all that is very good, but that’s not going to do the trick for industrialization… Ethiopia remains reliant on petrol but with imports. I think that the whole industrial idea was very exaggerated back then. I don’t hear that many people talking about it now. I guess they’re not talking about it for a reason, otherwise, they would be flaunting their success if it existed. This is not an ideological point, but I think the Meles government’s idea of, I forget the acronym, but the idea of industrialization through agriculture, I think that’s the way to go for Ethiopia. It’s the only way forward for Ethiopia, still.
I mean, industry, yes, as much as possible. But how are you going to feed all these people? How are you going to give them jobs? I don’t think we’re going to have mega Chinese steel factories here. I don’t think that’s going to happen, ever. I don’t know if I answered your question, but so there’s this sort of, you know, this sort of mock make-believe aspect to all this.
Europe right now is suffering tremendously, economically, for some of the same reasons, like decreased access to cheap energy, declining economies, broken up logistics with China and the deleterious impacts of the war in Ukraine. So some of the same negative factors are also impacting Europe, it’s not just here, in Ethiopia. But I think there’s a sort of rush to get things forward. I see that we’ve switched from China to Dubai now, as a model… But again, you know, it’s like all this stuff that we’re rolling out now in Addis Ababa… well, time will tell. Let’s see in five years, in ten years where it’s at, because I remember the crazy rush to build all these industrial zones ten years ago when they were going to solve everything… As I said, we don’t seem to talk about it that much anymore. I’m not saying they don’t exist and they don’t work. They do, I know they do, but what’s the true positive impact been — on jobs, on livelihoods and the balance of payments?!
I’ve heard a lot of people commenting over the years on China’s communist party’s unspoken agreement with the Chinese people: leave governing to us and we will deliver prosperity. Depending on where you stand on the political spectrum, this is seen as responsible management of the people’s interests or a prime example of authoritarianism at work…but you can also remember the essayist Gore Vidal’s definition of the system of government in America, ‘the US government has one party, which defends the interests of the property class. It has a left-wing and a right wing.’ (today, I’m not sure Vidal could tell the Democrat and Republican apart, at all).
But, of course, in reality, it doesn’t matter if the government is ‘communist’, ‘republican’ or anything else, as long as it delivers the goods! Likewise in Ethiopia, where at least since Emperor Theodoros, all Ethiopian monarchs have been self-avowed growth advocates (the name of the current main party, the Prosperity Party, says it all). Curiously, the words ‘authority’ and ‘augury’ (to predict the future by divination), share the same root… To have authority, you should deliver a better future (if you want to stay in power, that is). Today, growth is faltering in the West and is probably slowing down in emerging countries as well, in China, and yes, in Ethiopia too. It may be time to start reading the future in coffee grounds again — just like in Auld Abyssinia…
Capital: Can you explain how your book uses personal memories and encounters to portray Ethiopia?
Yves-Marie Stranger: There are three interviews with prominent personalities. Two Ethiopian (Beede Maryam and Rahel Shawl) and one French historian, Éloi Ficquet. In these interviews, I simply seek out their opinions on what makes Ethiopia tick, from their point of view. There are different people I knew too. I knew the writer Sebhat Gebre-Egziabher relatively well and I worked with him because I used to work at Shama Books. He was doing some translations for books that were published by them. I also used to go to the book club that was organized by Ashenafi in Sangaterra, near Berhawi. Sebhat would talk to a whole bunch of youngsters here and we got to know each other.
Later, I used to go to his home as well, to partake in his chat sessions with his friends. What I’m trying to do here through my memories and encounters is to paint a portrait of the country. Sebhat, from his generation, from his point of view, through his writings, through his life, is one approach of Ethiopia. And then for example, Sammy Asfew, a friend and colleague of mine, also portrayed in the book, is from a different generation who came of age in the middle of the Meles era. We used to teach together at Gibson Youth Academy. Sammy lived in a kebele house in Sangaterra before it was destroyed. People talk about Piassa, but they forget everything else… He lived with his family in a kebele house for some thirty years, for very low rents (I think the payment was something like 13 birrs, per month!).
Sammy’s mother worked at the Wabe Shebelle Hotel. She was a cook there. And Woyzero Meheret, who is another ‘character’ in the book, is my mother-in-law, whom I worked with when we ran the horse treks. And again, I’m trying to take these young people, these old people with different backgrounds, like Sammy Asfew… On Sammy’s ID card, it used to say that he’s an Oromo, but he was born in Addis and speaks only Amharic… Sebhat Gebre-Egziabher was born in Adua, of course. Beede Maryam, I think is well known, as the Emperor’s grandson. It’s difficult to give short, concise answers because, through these different characters, I’m trying to sketch an impressionistic portrait, of all the little bits and pieces that form Ethiopia as a whole.
Capital: Why were you visiting Harar recently, and what were your impressions of the city?
Yves-Marie Stranger: I’m collaborating on somebody’s biography at the moment. I can’t say who, but a notable Ethiopian person. I was doing background research. That’s as much as I can say about that story.
I was very happy to go to Harar. One, just because it’s such a welcome break from Addis! The capital is just in a little bit of a mess these days. And it’s such a breath of fresh air because they’re so different, you know? The way they interact with you, they’re famously direct. And also because the last time I went was such a long time ago. I don’t know, more than ten years ago, I don’t know… They’ve cleaned the place up. It looks fantastic. It’s so beautiful. You know, it was quite dirty in the Jegol and stuff. They’ve cleaned it up. They’ve put nice paving stones. They’ve put, you know, whitewash on the walls, kilometres of them. It looks fantastic. Very welcoming. Very nice and safe. So, I encourage everybody to go there. All the more so, you know, there are nearly no tourists. Very, very few, nearly none. There are quite a few Ethiopian tourists though. I must mention the incredible new stadium, called Aw Abadir I think, that is a concrete behemoth lying just a stone’s throw from the old city…It looks like a portal to another universe. They say it could include 110,000 standing spectators. I think Harar only has 140 00 inhabitants, so excluding infants and bedridden invalids, you could probably put the whole population in there. I never even knew Harar had a football team…
Capital: Why do you think there are no tourists?
Yves-Marie Stranger: You know, all the embassies, I think, have sort of like whatever they call it, red alerts or whatever, on everything, Amara, Tigray, Oromia. I mean, that’s 80% of the country probably already. Not in Addis, I’m sure. But no tourist is going to come to Addis. Whatever they built here! That’s not happening. People don’t visit Ethiopia for Addis. Diaspora, yes. Whatever, but I mean, yeah, conferences, Africans, all this. Yeah, sure, of course, obviously it’s the AU here, all that, but tourists come to see Lalibela or the Bale Mountains. They want to go to Axum. So, in most of these areas, I think, I don’t know what the situation is. I’m sure it changes all the time, but I’m sure the embassies are telling people not to go places and stuff.
This is on top of the war in Tigray, which was terrible. It was a rolling bad publicity. Then COVID disrupted a lot of things. It’s impoverished a lot of the Europeans who would have travelled to faraway places. I think it also changed habits. You know, I think the number of flights in the world, I think it’s barely the same as it was before COVID. Maybe just a little bit underneath. You know, had it continued, it would be here. But it hasn’t. It’s static. I remember Meles, was being asked in an interview about tourism. He was very dismissive. Rightly so, in a way. He said, ‘One bullet fired and your tourists disappear!’ Which is kind of true, you know. I mean, there are quite a few problems right now, but the smallest thing will stop tourists. One incident and they just vanish for years. There might not be another bombing for ten years, but they still won’t come. So, again, you know, small businesses, agriculture, I think that’s where Ethiopia’s future lies. That, and Adere footballers! I think one would be wise to invest in Harar football.
Capital: Have you donated any items to museums in Ethiopia, and if so, could you tell us about that?
Yves-Marie Stranger: I gave one of the McLellan saddles from the Haile Selassie era to the Ethnological Museum. And I also gave one to the Yimtubezena. It’s a charming museum. You know, it’s in the Friendship Park just in front of the Gibi, the park in front of the Abrehot Library. They left one old house from the Menelik reign and made it into a museum. Very sweet, very nice, with traditional things. It’s called Yimtubezena because it was the name of the businesswoman who owned it back in the day. Very nice place. Abel Assefa is the curator. He did an exhibition on traditional Ethiopian equestrian culture. The saddle I gifted to the museum I bought from one Ato Edgetu, a saddle maker from ‘koretcha terra,’ in the merkato. Ato Edgetu telephoned me one morning, insisting that I come and see some ‘a mountain of saddles,’ not in his Merkato shop, but at his residence, as ‘they were too numerous to be transported…’ I took Edgetu’s exaggerations with a whole tub of greasy saddle soap, but, as the saying goes —never look a gift horse in the mouth — for, arriving at his home compound, I was ceremoniously taken to a backyard where, sure enough, stood a towering heap of saddles, stirrups and buckles some 2 meters high — all in all, there were 84 saddles in the pile (read more about Edgetu’s saddles in Capital June 3 edition, also available online).
Capital: Can you tell us about your new book and any upcoming projects and interviews related to it?
Yves-Marie Stranger: My next book is The Hornbook of Pêro da Covilhã. It covers 2,000 years of Ethiopian history and whereas A Gallop in Ethiopia is a memoir and an essay, the Hornbook is more like an homage to the country. I was just interviewed about The Hornbook on EBC by Shiferaw Lakew. The show’s called Addis Dialogue and you can view it on the EBC World Channel on YouTube.
Pêro da Covilhã was the first Portuguese ambassador who was sent here, to Ethiopia. He arrived in 1498 or 99 at the court of Emperor Iskender. And it’s this Pêro who sent an ambassador to Portugal during the war with Imam Ahmed, to ask for the help of the Portuguese. If Pêro da Covilhã had not done that, the history of Ethiopia would have been very different indeed, no doubt! No three hundred musketeers to save Ethiopia (in the words of Edward Gibbon)!
The Hornbook of Pêro da Covilhã spells out the history of Ethiopia through a series of 33 biographical vignettes of emblematic Ethiopian lives – with each life corresponding to one of the main 33 symbols of the Abyssinian Syllabary – or Abugida. Each of the 33 main Fidel is a character, obviously, but for each Fidel, the writing that makes up the Fidel is also the story of one historical figure in the history of Ethiopia. The Hornbook tells the whole story of Ethiopia through 33 characters. The story begins when I receive a mysterious outline of Pêro da Covilhã’s Ethiopian Hornbook containing the long-lost memoirs of the Portuguese traveller, an account preserved for five centuries in an Ethiopian hornbook* by Pero’s descendants in Ethiopia.
The Hornbook includes sketches of Ethiopian historical characters, associated with numerological annotations from a forgotten work of the French anthropologist Marcel Griaule, L’Arithnomancie Ethiopienne. Ensues a romp through the pages of Ethiopian history, that will ultimately lead to an excursion to the summit of Mount Kaka, a 4 000 high peak located in the Rift Valley.
The Hornbook spells out the many lives of Victor Lazlo [ገ], Rimbaud [ዐ], King Théodore [ከ], the Monk Théodore [የ], Munziger Pasha [ወ], Alessandro Zorzi [ሰ], Arab Faquih [ሸ], Leonard Cohen [ፀ], Umm Delombera [ተ], Menfus Kiddus [ሠ] and more…with a prologue by the distinguished scholar Manuel de Guèz.
*Hornbook: a primer for study made of horn affixed to a hard surface. Often used for learning to read. Pêro da Covilhã’s hornbook was first used by Pêro to learn the abugida, or Ethiopian syllabary, and to transcribe the events of his life during his forty years in Ethiopia.
Yves-Marie Stranger is an author and translator. He is the author of the book Ethiopia through Writers’ Eyes, A Gallop in Ethiopia and the translator of the African Train and Menelik. You can find him at Uthiopia.com.
