I recently read an article by Esther Freud on what she calls “The perils of writing about family,” and what it means to navigate different and/or divergent memories of incidents with siblings when recounting family life and growing up. The divergence can sometimes be drastic. Someone I know had his whole understanding of his childhood upended as one of the siblings accused, the until then respected and liked father, of sexual abuse. The allegations, which cannot be pursued through formal channels, nevertheless dragged the immediate and extended family into an acrimonious battle, ultimately resulting in the isolation and reputational assassination of the said father.

Indeed, families who share traumatic pasts are doomed to live on eggshells forever, and few venture into the even more difficult task of documenting such a past in a book- for all to see.

Coincidences sometimes happening in rapid succession, when I came upon the said article, I happened to be reading Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and later “How to Lose Your Mother” by Molly Fast-Jong, the daughter of one of the 70s “new wave” feminists in the US called Erica Jong. While both tell the story of a childhood with mothers who “did not live up to their duty of motherhood”, if I may take the liberty of saying, Maya had a brother, and Molly is an only child. I agree with Esther Freud that the problem of varying, understandably so, experiences of siblings adds to the complexity of writing a childhood memoir. I am not sure if we can positively assert that being an only child makes it any easier to open up once past public judgment.

Not all childhood memoirs have to be about trauma. While not just about childhood, biographies of “successful” personalities would have us believe that one has to have had the most perfect parents and families, who are different from their peers and their neighbourhoods, to become successful……….or the President of the United States, or First Lady. There is this description, for example, I just cannot forget from Bill Clinton’s autobiography, where he says his maternal grandfather, who ran a grocery store, sold goods on credit “to people of all races”- aka including African American clients. It is supposed to imply that Bill comes from a long line of “progressives”. Does such a perspective suggest that if your grandfather was say… a Nazi sympathiser, it is impossible for you to become the leader of the UK Labour Party? And how would we deal with such a past in a book?

Many Ethiopian biographies and autobiographies, also dedicate a section, of varying sizes (but never long enough in my eyes), to their childhood and growing-up years. For many pre-1974 political and other personalities, the story invariably and understandably starts in a rural village. It then moves on to boarding schools, as was almost the only way to get access to education at the time. We have also seen biographies published posthumously by family members who have collated notes left by the parent and other research. Perhaps the best example of this in my view is Aklilu’s Notes (የአክሊሉ ማስታወሻ)– which is the unadulterated personal notebook of the foreign and later prime minister. I was also impressed by all the work that the families put into the biography of General Merid Negussie (ለወገን እና ለሀገር ክብር).

While all these books give an invaluable insight into how children were raised at the time, and despite (perhaps unavoidable) the slightly self-aggrandizing elements, I cannot cite off hand an example that can be categorized as a full-fledged childhood memoir.  Haddis Alemayehu’s Tizita, Assefa Chabo’s Ye Tizita Feleg and Dr. Mitiku Belachew’s “The Shepherd has become a Surgeon” – certainly dedicate large sections to childhood memories and all the environment that surrounded them. Professor Bahiru Zewde’s autobiography is a special example as it not only dedicates nearly one third of the book to his upbringing, but it provides one of rare examples of growing up in Addis Ababa in the 50s and 60s. There’s also of course “Cutting for Stone” by Dr Abraham Varghese, which, though a fiction, incorporates several autobiographical elements.  I stand to be corrected, but perhaps then strictly speaking, “Cutting for Stone” might then be the only one that can fit into the childhood memoir category? It is a question.

Childhood memoirs are equally rare on the continent. Notable examples from Africa include of course, Ngugi’s “Dreams in A Time of War” and, also from Kenya, Wainaina’s “One Day I Will Write About This Place”. My personal favourites, though not strictly childhood memoirs, are “My First Coup d’Etat” by the current president of Ghana and “Before the Knife” by Caroline Slaughter, from South Africa.  

It goes without saying that childhood memoirs do not all have to be about trauma and overcoming challenges. The informative and even educational value of fictional works and novelists such as Adam Reta exploring childhood and coming of age should not be dismissed either. In addition, radio and TV interviews, perhaps the ultimate example being Meaza Birru’s Saturday Series on Sheger Radio, might arguably be the most comprehensive and authentic archive available for any further interest into the subject of growing up in Ethiopia.

One might also argue that if books are essentially about “universally human” experiences perhaps we do not need each and every person on this planet to write about their upbringing and their families? We have social media for that…. I also wonder if what I call the Ethiopian, perhaps even African?, “Old Testament Morality” that frowns upon washing the family’s laundry in public and guilt trips any judgement of one’s parents, regardless of the circumstances, would really allow for the genre to flourish or even for an earnest interview of one’s upbringing…(I am not even going to think about the moronic shows about scandals between couples and neighbours that now make the bread and butter of media houses these days)…..I mean, after all, at least until the late 1990s, everyone knew everyone’s business and we were not raised all that different from one another in Ethiopia and even in Africa anyway…..Besides, in a continent where children belonged to everyone, a childhood memoir would be redundant?

However, among many other benefits, childhood memoirs are essentially a peek into the lives of ordinary people- regardless of whether the writer later became a famous personality or not…A glimpse into what our ancestors watched, listened to, the games they played and how various historical events impacted their lives………..It is also a record of the neighbourhoods and the places they were raised in….. (I don’t know if you were of the generation who remembers how much joy this post from 2016/2017 about the habits and upbringing of Addis Ababa Youth of the 80s and 90s that went viral brough to us all.. …Other examples about other cities eventually followed)

An invaluable insight that is all the more necessary in times of drastic changes where we sometimes risk losing all physical and narrative memories of our cities and neighbourhoods….