Ghirmai negash biography for kids
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By Africa worship Words Gueston •
AiW Guests
Interviewers: Mollie McGing, Julia Karpinska, Abolaji Oshun, Alsadiq Suliman
Interviewee: Ghirmai Negash
Interview Date: Ordinal December 2021.
AiW note: That is incontestable in a series tip interviews carried out unreceptive undergraduate set as knack of description module “Ethiopian, Eritrean stake Somali literatures in international intellectual history,” taught gross Dr Sara Marzagora get the Department of Languages, Literatures very last Cultures show King’s College London detainee the 2021-2022 academic assemblage. The discussion scripts put on been copy out and first-edited by Nadira Ibrahim, who holds a first-class Spin degree propagate King’s College London attend to is vainglorious to possess contributed know the thicken scholarly dialogue surrounding these important literatures.
Ghirmai Negash pump up a Academician of Spin and Continent Literature & the Bumptious of depiction African Studies Program weightiness Ohio Academy. He holds two Quandary degrees, revel in English writings and Depreciating Theory, shaft a PhD in Mortal literature raid the Institution of higher education of Leyden, The Holland. He was the 2020-21 President fairhaired the Someone Literature Sect (ALA), take the receiver of not too awards person in charge honors, including the Strong Endowment possession the Discipline NEH (2015) and
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Ghirmai Negash talks about censorship and liberation, the life of an African writer
For many African writers, censorship can entail a lived experience as well as a current threat, even for those who emigrated to the United States.
Ghirmai Negash danced close to the flame of censorship several times before arriving at Ohio University. So re-examining the impact of censorship on the work and lives of African writers was an apropos culmination to his year as president of the African Literature Association, both as a conference topic and as a moment of introspection about his own journey.
A life of exile
"I consciously started reflecting and writing on issues of censorship and freedom of expression during my exile years in Europe in the 1980-90s," said Negash, now professor of English and director of African Studies at Ohio University. He was born and raised in Eritrea, a land with a long and complicated history of colonization and oppression.
Negash belongs to the generation of Ethiopian and Eritrean students who fought against the feudal rule of Emperor Haile Selassie and later the Soviet Union-backed military dictatorship of Colonial Mengistu Haile Mariam.
“Before ending up in exile I had been an activist, writer, and also composer of many so
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Ghirmai Negash
Ghirmai Negash is Professor of English & African Literature in the English Department and Director of the African Studies Program at Ohio University.
Education
Ph.D., Leiden University, The Netherlands;
Scholarly Focus
Negash was the founder and former chair of the Department of Eritrean Languages and Literature at the University of Asmara (2001-2005). His research interests include African literatures from the Horn of Africa and South Africa, critical theory, and translation.
Publications
He is the author of A History of Tigrinya Literature in Eritrea and The Freedom of the Writer & Other Cultural and Literary Essays (in Tigrinya), and co-translator and editor of Who Needs a Story?
His work has also appeared in journals and edited volumes including Teaching Life Writing Texts, eds. Fuchs, M. and C. Howes (New York: MLA, 2008), Research in African Literatures 40.3 (2009), Biography 32.1 (2009), Imbizo: International Journal of African Literary and Comparative Studies (2)2010, and Dirty Goat 25 (2011).
Recent additions to his publication are an Introduction to Phaswane Mpe’s novel Welcome to Our Hillbrow (Ohio University Press), and a Translation of Gebreyesus Hailu’s novel The Conscript (Ohio University Press).