Oromay

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.

An engrossing political thriller and a tale of love and war for readers of John Le Carré and Philip Kerr.

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: Baalu Girma
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 02/04/2025
Pages: 416
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.70lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.90w x 1.40d
ISBN: 9781641296663


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 12/01/2024
Publishers Weekly 12/16/2024
Booklist 01/01/2025 pg. 34

About the Author
Baalu Girma (1939 - ?) was one of Ethiopia's greatest writers and Oromay was his most famous novel. He began his career as a journalist in Ethiopia, eventually becoming both a well-known novelist and a top official in the Ministry of Information under the Derg dictatorship. He based Oromay on the real-life Red Star Campaign, a failed government effort to crush the long-running Eritrean insurgency. Its unflattering portrait of the regime caused the book to be banned and Girma to be fired. He vanished on Valentine's Day 1984, likely kidnapped and murdered by the Derg.

David DeGusta is a writer and translator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He earned an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received the 2023 Henfield Prize, and was a 2024 MacDowell Fellow. Previously, he worked as a paleoanthropologist in Ethiopia.

Mesfin Felleke Yirgu was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with Amharic as his native language. He has been involved with the Baalu Girma Foundation since its founding and is a long-time friend of the Girma family.