Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress (Amh.) - Ethiopian Gospel Music

Bunyan, John. Pilgrim’s Progress / የክርስቲያን መንገድ ከዚህ ዓለም ወደ ዘላላም ሕይወት የማወስድ [The Christian path leads from this world to the eternal life]. Translated into Amharic by Gebra Georgis Terfe. Carried through press by J. Martin Flad. St. Chrischona: Mission Press, 1892.

[Printed at the joint expense of the Ev. Fosterland Stiftelsens (SEM), the Religious Tract-Society and the London-Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.]

Notes

Gebra Georgis Terfe [ገብረ ጊዮርጊስ ትርፌ; Lundström’s spelling: Gebre-Georgis Tirfé] was the son of a Qeshi whom the Swedish mission had employed as a teacher at the mission school.

Gebre-Georgis lived from 1869 to 1893. In 1888, SEM leader Svensson sent Gebre-Giorgis to Florence (Italy) to train as a teacher. After his return, he taught Italian in Tse’azzega briefly until he died of fever in May 1893 (Missions-Tidning, July 1893, p. 99).

Stephen Wright, Amharic Literature (p. 17), took the view:

“This work [Gebre-Georgis’ Amharic translation of Pilgrim’s Progress] has probably had a profound influence, in respect to both form and content, on the formation of new Amharic literature. After thirty years its effects could be sensed in several works of Blattengeta Hǝruy, and today many authors, including Ras Bitwäddäd Mäkonnǝn, and a host of minor writers, obviously owe ‒ though often indirectly and quite unconsciously ‒ a considerable debt thereto.” (Quoted in Kane, Ethiopian Literature, p. 6)

Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress (Amh.)

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