The Anglo-Ethiopian Society News File - Summer 2013

festivals and events, and the growing recognition within Ethiopia of the importance of other African countries. The book closes with chapters on the death of Sylvia and the abortive coup dtat, both in 1960. The dramatic changes to Richard and Ritas lives in later years will be covered in a second volume. There were a few small errors in my copy of the book that should really have been picked up by the proof readers, but as mine was an advance copy these may have been fixed in the latest edition. In any case they do not really spoil the stories. The book gives a fascinating, often humorous, look at Richard and Ritas early years and of life in Ethiopia in the 1950s. It answers the questions that people may have of why they first went to Ethiopia and why they have stayed for so long. The book is full of interesting, and sometimes surprising, photographs. A most enjoyable read! John Mellors

Osvaldo Raineri, Il Signore delle Chiavi: Scritti Etiopici sull Apostolo Pietro, (Roma: Orientalia Christiana, 2012), pp. 348, 20 ISBN 978-88-7210-377-7
Osvaldo Raineri has spent more than four decades studying Geez (Classical Ethiopic). During this time Raineri, who is among the most prolific scholars of Ethiopian studies working today, has written more than twenty books and published over three hundred articles. In his latest contribution, Il Signore delle Chiavi (The Lord of the Keys), Raineri draws upon his profound knowledge of the field to offer a collection of references to the Apostle Peter in Christian Ethiopian literature. These are taken from different worksmostly theological, hagiographical, liturgical, catechetical, and patristic textswhich were written in or translated into Geez between the thirteenth and the nineteenth centuries. What emerges from these excerpts is that, despite the division between the Ethiopian Tewahedo Church and the Holy See, caused by the Chalcedonian schism in 451, the Ethiopians retained a strong attachment to the figure of St. Peter and to Rome. This attachment, as Raineri notices (p. 13), is testified by the presence of the church of St. Stephen of the Abyssinians near St. Peters Basilica in Rome. The church, with its annexed hospice, was destined at an early date for those Ethiopian pilgrims and monks who risked their lives to come to Rome to venerate the tomb of St. Peter. The title of the book itself, taken from the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (p. 14), is one of the many epithets that are used in Christian Ethiopian literature to refer to Peter. And so we find that Peter is called, for instance, pillar of light in the Book of the Dormition of Mary (p.25), chief of the apostles in the Miracles of Mary (p. 51), or sistrum of Christ and 23

The Anglo-Ethiopian Society News File - Summer 2013

treasure of faith in the Hymn for Peter and Paul (p. 198). The book is divided into sections of varying lengths. This is because all the excerpts from one source are grouped into the same section, and while some works, such as the Apocalypse of Peter, contain many references to the Apostle, others, such as the Book of Light, do not. Each section begins with a brief but useful introductory note that describes the work from which the excerpts in that section are taken, as well as the approximate date of its appearance in Ethiopian literature. Also noteworthy is the inclusion of fourteen letters (pp. 311-33) written by different Ethiopian rulers, or by members of their entourage, and sent to the Pope, who is obviously seen here as Peters successor. The earliest of these letters is dated 1441, the latest 1924. Interestingly, in one of these letters (p. 331), written in 1875 by Menelik II (1844-1913), the Negus informs Pope Pius IX (1792-1878) of his favourable treatment of the Catholic missionary Guglielmo Massaia (see article on pp. 10-12), probably in the hopes of gaining the Popes approval. This book, it should be noted, does not claim to offer a comprehensive survey of the figure of Peter in Ethiopian literature. Moreover, aside from a brief introduction, Raineri does not present us with his views on the subject: he lets the texts, meticulously translated in Italian, speak for themselves. Nevertheless, this work will be of considerable interest to anyone interested in Christian Ethiopian literature, and it will be an invaluable research tool for anyone interested in studying the figure of St. Peter in Ethiopia. Jacopo Gnisci

Chris Beckett, Ethiopia Boy, (Manchester: Oxford Poets, 2013), pp. 64, 9.95 ISBN 978-1-90618-809-2
Chris Beckett, the award-winning poet whose first book The Dog Who Thinks he is a Fish was published in 2004, grew up in Ethiopia during the 1960s when I and many others were making our way into the university and to protest and rebel against Emperor Haile Selassies rule. Ethiopia was then, as it is today, a land of contradictions, of sumptuous feasts ( gibr with raw meat and tej drink) in the palace, and, as Beckett notes in his poem The banquet, where daytime beggars show (us) sores and stumps/ stick hungry babies under our noses, a land of famine and injustice, of oppressed people stubbornly clinging to their pride and tattered clothes. Beckett has captured the spirit and soul of the land, the fatalism (I am bad days coming and days that are worse than that, To the man with a guzzler wife), and, yes, the romanticism and eternal hope of the ordinary Ethiopian. Compared to today, those were hard but relatively gentler days and, as Beckett delves into his memories as a 24