Homesickness, Violence and Prostitution: Amharic Literature on Labour Migration to the Gulf States

Abstract

Thousands of people are leaving Ethiopia monthly to be employed in the Gulf states. This involvement of Ethiopians in labor migration shapes the modern culture of the country. There are hundreds of songs, poems and movies based on the concept of siddet — an Amharic term which can be roughly translated as migration or exile. In this paper the way in which labor migration is presented in Amharic fiction is analysed. Two Amharic novels taken for the research (“Thorny gold” by Saada Muhammed and “Alemnesh, a refugee in the Middle East” by Melake Teezazu) appear to reproduce the negative discourse on migration. Thus, stories about successful migration are absent making suffering of compatriots the major topic of the narration. I argue that the concept of siddet manages to create a new transnational Ethiopian identity, based on the idea of common national tragedy. Although the culture of exile is mostly created by the diaspora, it is in demand among those how stay behind. Refs 17.