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Oromay

Audiobook
Fiction
Unabridged   10.5 hour(s)
Publication date: 05/27/2025

F O R T H C O M I N G ! Available May

Oromay

Available from major retailers
Digital Download ISBN:9781696618250

Summary

A journalist finds himself embroiled in a disastrous government campaign as well as a sweeping romance in this landmark English translation of Ethiopia's most famous novel.

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Product Description

December 1981, Ethiopia. Tsegaye Hailemaryam, a well-known journalist for the state-run media, has just landed in Asmara. He is on assignment as the head of propaganda for the Red Star campaign, a massive effort by the Ethiopian government to end the Eritrean insurgency. There, amid the city's bars and coffeehouses buzzing with spies and government agents, he juggles the demands of his superiors while trying to reassure his fiancée back home that he's not straying with Asmara's famed beauties.

As Tsegaye falls in love with Asmara—and, in spite of his promises, with dazzling, enigmatic local woman Fiammetta—his misgivings about the campaign grow. Tsegaye confronts the horror of war when he is sent with an elite army unit to attack the insurgents' mountain stronghold. In the aftermath, he encounters betrayals that shake his faith in both the regime and human nature.

Oromay became an instant sensation when first published in 1983 and was swiftly banned for its frank depiction of the regime. The author vanished soon thereafter; the consensus is that he was murdered in retaliation for Oromay. A sweeping and timeless story about power and betrayal in love and war, the novel remains Girma's masterpiece.

Author Bio

Baalu Girma was one of Ethiopia's greatest writers, and Oromay was his most famous novel. He began his career as a journalist, eventually becoming both a well-known novelist and a top official in the Ministry of Information under the Derg dictatorship. He vanished on Valentine's Day 1984, likely murdered by the Derg.