Mengistu Lemma

Mengistu Lemma was born in 1924 in Harar into an ecclesiastical family, the son of the renowned church scholar Aleqa Lemma Hailu. Educated at the London School of Economics, he lived in Britain for seven years before joining the Ethiopian foreign service in India.

Combining profound mastery of classical Ge'ez poetry (Qene) with Western theatrical structure, Lemma pioneered indigenous social comedy. His masterpiece Yalacha Gabicha (Snobbery in Marriage, 1965) used sparkling wit and traditional proverbs to satirize Westernized elites who looked down upon their ancestral roots. His biographical recording of his father's oral recollections remains an invaluable cultural document of early 20th-century Ethiopia.