Book contents
- African Literature in Transition
- African Literature in Transition
- African Literature in Transition
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Producing Print
- Part II Readers and Audiences
- Part III New Genres
- Part IV Worlds of Print
- Chapter 17 Double-Sided Print
- Chapter 18 Between the Railway and the Minaret
- Chapter 19 Making Audiences
- Chapter 20 Print and the Question of Literature in Islamic West Africa
- Chapter 21 Print Networks in the Black Atlantic World, c. 1920–1960
- Chapter 22 ‘A curious creature from the market’
- Index
- References
Chapter 19 - Making Audiences
Gäbrä-Əgziabher Gila-Maryam as a Forerunner of Ethiopian Print Culture, 1895–1914
from Part IV - Worlds of Print
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2025
Book contents
- African Literature in Transition
- African Literature in Transition
- African Literature in Transition
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Producing Print
- Part II Readers and Audiences
- Part III New Genres
- Part IV Worlds of Print
- Chapter 17 Double-Sided Print
- Chapter 18 Between the Railway and the Minaret
- Chapter 19 Making Audiences
- Chapter 20 Print and the Question of Literature in Islamic West Africa
- Chapter 21 Print Networks in the Black Atlantic World, c. 1920–1960
- Chapter 22 ‘A curious creature from the market’
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter analyses the epistemological overhaul of genres and ideas of textuality that took place in Ethiopia between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, and that prepared the grounds for the rise of Amharic print culture. Gäbrä-Əgziabher Gila-Maryam is generally credited with producing the first Amharic newspaper. His poetic newssheets readapted the genre of the awaj, or imperial proclamation. Most of these newssheets were handwritten, but Gäbrä-Əgziabher also pioneered the use of print to clandestinely circulate a longer type of awaj in prose. Through an analysis of Gäbrä-Əgziabher’s genre innovations, the chapter argues that the emergence of print in Ethiopia should be understood as part of a broader transformation of the oral/written interface – itself a result of the resignification of notions of ‘the public’ in the context of the new global dimension of politics.
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- African Literature in TransitionPrint Cultures and African Literature, 1860–1960, pp. 374 - 391Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
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