I am in the middle of a major organization of my “stuff” as George Carlin calls our things. It looks like I am preparing for a major exile. Or like I was told I am going to die very soon.

My biggest headache in this process has been what to do with my books. My books were my only “property” worth anything. People come back from abroad and build houses and buy cars- I brought back books.

My books were the only constant in my life when everything else turned upside down. I have often chosen them over everyone else and lost long time friends over books that they never returned. I have often bought books instead of paying my rent. I have gone days reading some books without eating. I read “Destiny” in bed for over a weekend in my campus dorm not even getting up to wash. I remember I almost collapsed on the steps going home to return the book to my mother who herself had borrowed it from one of those kiosk booksellers.

Books I have borrowed from people when I couldn’t afford them at the time, I have made a point to buy them later and still feel immense joy seeing them on my shelf now. Unforgettable examples are “Shogun”, Madam Secretary (Madeleine Albright’s autobiography) and The Warlord. I have judged people harshly over books- not reading them, not understanding them, not liking them or when they tell me some silly stuff like not reading certain kinds of books, or not reading books by Ethiopians … (የሀገራችንን ልጆች እኛ ካላነበብናቸው ቻይና እንዲያነባቸው ነው?)

My books are one of biggest shared memories with my parents, grandparents and my siblings. I can trace you the story of the  Addis Ababa I grew up in with the books that came out. Two people who can potentially make a murderess out of me one day are people who threw out the books I kept in their house for safe keeping.

Sometimes I just look at my books for hours and touch the covers and just sit there enjoying the memory of where I bought them, where I was when I read them. It’s the reason I keep my books in my bedroom. I don’t understand the philosophy that advises keeping clutter out of your bedroom. Books are not clutter- they are mementos of your life, your travels, your good and bad memories, your gratitude for where you are and your safe space from all your troubles in life.

I recently heard about someone who had to give up her books because her house was being demolished. Of all the reasons which make me ache for the people who lost their homes and livelihoods, this is perhaps the most saddening.

So yes when you “organize” your house, for whatever reason, deciding what to do with your books is very very not easy.

There are the books that you give away: even after having at long last decided on the recipients (Wemezeker, Alliance etc) and halving selected the books … I kept them for days scattered on my bed and slept next to them and wept. Some I have taken and put them back on the shelves. Others which I put aside in a bag for friends are still there safe in my bedroom.

Then there are the books you plan to lock away when you leave- hoping that they will wait for you and will be in safe hands… despite demolitions, earthquakes and evictions and poverty…

Then there are those you want to take with you wherever you go…. Hoping that they will be safe with you despite exile, evictions, imprisonment, moves, natural disasters, poverty and even death…. It’s also a hard decision to make because it’s like selecting your favorite children from your children…

Sometimes I look at my books and think that it’s better I lose them all myself now while I still can instead of being forced by circumstances … or worse still before someone else loses them for me …. I ask myself what is the purpose of holding on to them so vigorously, so violently…when I am not even sure how long they will be mine…

So I have been putting away books that I would take with me “to a deserted island” so to speak… The answer is all of them but that is unpractical. It’s a conundrum.

There are the classics I and half my peers grew up with, there are the ones you read out of obligation because you couldn’t have been a respectable reader if you hadn’t read them, there are the ones that have a special memory (like ሳቤላ and ብርቅርታ and ቆንጆዎቹ…and War and Peace for example) and the ones people gave you as presents… (beautiful gifts books… thank you to all of you who gave me books) … there are the beautiful books (coffee table books with lovely photos, books with lovely binding or gorgeous editions… poetry books that completely blew your mind…books signed by the authors… even travel guides of places I have been to which I can’t imagine ever willingly giving up)…

There are the books that you might want to be buried with when you die… (Please bury me with all of Adam Reta’s books… አደራ በሰማይ በምድር …) I wish to be buried with all of Jorge Amado’s books and all of Adam Reta’s books actually but I know that my grave would have to be a pyramid in that case… so I will be satisfied with Adam Reta…

And then there are the books by your fellow Ethiopian contemporaries…. Some of whom you may even know or have met… I will not lie… I buy these contemporary books with fear of being disappointed…. I try and buy them as soon as possible after they come out because I do believe that we are the only possible people in the planet who can be the audience for Ethiopian artists and writers… right? Logical… it’s common sense…

Besides if we don’t enjoy and engage with their work ourselves, how do we expect them to have the renown and respect from other nationalities…You think Laureate Afeworq Tekle or Laureate Tsegaye Gebremedhin would have the place and renown they occupy in the African or global stage if their contemporaries had actually not read them and enjoyed their work?

And then there’s the fact that writers and artists need to live off their work… it breaks my heart that they are forced to earn a living off a day job because it doesn’t pay to be a full-time artist in this country….

(Another parenthesis here to make a note of the category of people I absolutely cannot stand… Writers and artists who don’t read and enjoy other works by their contemporaries… )

So to come back to the sifting and categorizing… of books by people your age or around there, the writers who are growing in their art form, the amateurs, or those you have seen eat at a restaurant somewhere… in short the ones you can say that you have lived in the same generation as…

It’s not a lucky generation… Our generation globally is in general very unlucky in as much as lots of “facilities” have been made available to make our lives very fortunate… But that’s off topic for now… Our Ethiopian generation is even more unlucky not least because we are reduced to being observants of all the facilities available globally but we cannot enjoy and access… Again off topic…

Of more relevance to the subject at hand, life is even more unlucky and more difficult for our contemporary writers than they were for even the generation of Yohannes Admasu and Debebe Seife… Because here they are catapulted into a world where advances have made inspiration, education, experiences, cultures and knowledge accessible to them but where neither the audience nor the tools they need to reach their audience are available to them…. Or it requires a lot of effort and patience and resources on their part… It’s why they are forced into day jobs, into all sorts of acrobatics to actually let people know that they even exist…. Not to mention the state sponsored or non state sponsored difficulties and challenges….

I can do nothing but sympathize and perhaps buy the books and enjoy their work of art… (Please buy books, buy movie tickets and stuff even when you don’t read them, buy event tickets even when you can’t go…)

So as I have already mentioned, I buy contemporary work with a lot of fear in my heart… First, because I have become jaded and cynical by a lot of superficiality… I can afford to call my own generation and the ones below superficial because 1/I have reached that age and 2/because our generation has been reduced to rubbles and nostalgia…

Second, because indeed there is a lot of superficiality… not just in Ethiopia but everywhere in the world… Lots of theories have been expounded to explain it but what consolation is there in knowing the cause of the disease when it’s already killing you?

Third, and perhaps most important reason of my fear in opening any contemporary book or starting to watch a new film by an Ethiopian… is the level of plagiarism… They steal from each other, from others in other countries they think we don’t know about or we would never read (dude you think we have never read a Congolese book or watch Philippino films?)

So when I hit play or open these books, it takes a lot of bracing and preparation and lowering of expectations…

So it makes my happiness that much greater to be surprised… To be so caught up as to spend hours reading them and to cry and to laugh and to kiss them before I find a place for them on the shelf…

I have put aside the contemporary books in the pictures below to take with me because I still want to spend some time in the happiness they gave me…

In order of seniority let me start with Tagel Seifu… I bought the books with a degree of surprise that he wrote novels too and for the nostalgia of his unforgettable fables narrated on the ETV and Ethiopia Radio of yonder… How surprised I was at the originality of the plots and the good humored feel and tone his day to day style narration actually gave the books … It made me realize that it’s why we loved his fables so much in the first place… who said that literature must be by definition inaccessible to the simpletons like us?

Girma Seifu… I sometimes wonder if he should have been born in this country… How unlucky for him really… (I simply love your work Girmish and I love love your story on Addis Ababa Noir (despite the horrible translation))

Then there is Alex Abraham… I read Alex out of respect for the “good old days” when Hiwot Emeshaw, Andualem Buketo, and a handful of others were the people who improved our lives on Facebook when everything was actually made dark by politics, censorship and persecution…I will never forget how ከእለታት ግማሽ ቀን made me feel … and this morning I finished አልተዘዋወረችም… and spent hours just dazed in thoughts and fantasies…

Yiftusera Mitiku and Bez Mekonnen’s books made me so proud that there were young Ethiopian women writers whom we will be able to quote and cite in the future… የመሀል ልጅ and ወድቆ የተገኘ ሀገር are very profound debuts that would hold their own against any of their contemporaries in the continent…

Then there is the work by someone I am proud to have actually worked with in one of his miserable day jobs…. Mesfin Wondwossen … ሸሙኔ is daring for many reasons but chiefly for defying the what seems to be an unwritten and incomprehensible rule of using urban language to narrate a rural story…( Only Laureate Tsegaye and አደፍርስ refused to enter this trap as far as I know)… Mesfin also gave us an unforgettable character and made us feel like we have met the person in real life….

Many successful writers say that people should write about stuff they know and live with or live around… it’s why we recognize so much of ourselves and people we love in the books we liked… (I thought Adam Reta had met my grandmother and I in another life when I read እናኑ in መረቅ and thought Alex Abraham had stolen parts of my life for his latest book…)

But what a fit to transport someone in sympathy and empathy into the life of someone you would never know like Mesfin did….

So this long long long post today is to say thank you for your work dear contemporary Ethiopian writers/artists and to share my encouragement and prayers for your growth and for a future where you will live and thrive off your work of art.

This is for your eyes only my dear fellow Ethiopian contemporary writers.

This is also a farewell to my books which have seen me through thick and thin. Thank you and farewell. I have loved you deeply deeply.