Ethiopian literature falls into three broad categories: classical literature, including historical narratives, heroic poetry, and works of philosophical reflection cast in an imaginative mode; romantic and political literature in Amharic, and, since the Second World War, the new literature in English. The classical literature is expressed in Ge’ez, a Semitic language that is also the oldest written language in Africa, with its unique orthography going back nearly two thousand years. The Holy Bible and all other Christian texts have been translated into Ge’ez, which survives today as the language of the Ethiopian clergy; in this respect, it has a status similar to Latin in the western world. Ordinary Ethiopians neither spoke nor wrote in Ge’ez. Therefore, the texts written in that language did not seep into the soul of the people, and did not produce a national literary culture. The classical literary texts, hymns, and songs circulate today only among the priestly class and highly specialized students and teachers of Ge’ez. This is part of the reason that the modern Ethiopian state which emerged in the late nineteenth century had to forge a new language aimed at producing a popular national culture through the medium of Amharic.

Classical literature

This category comprises a substantial number of devotional books, many of them works translated from foreign sources. They include biblical scriptures, exegesis, service books of the Coptic church, texts detailing the lives of saints of the Universal Church who flourished before the schism at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 ce and of saints of the Coptic church, especially the Desert Fathers, and homilies by the early Church Fathers, such as John Chrysostom, Athanasius of Alexandria, Severus of Antioch, and Cyril of Alexandria (Haile 1995:40).