Yacob Berhanu

Yacob Berhanu is a voracious reader, a passionate writer, novelist, essayist, humanist, and an influential young critic in Amharic literature from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He has published six books — two novels, two essay collections, and two translation works in Amharic, one of which was done in collaboration. He has written hundreds of inspiring literary criticisms, philosophical essays, theosophical meditations, short stories, commentaries, and travelogues for several local and continental magazines, newspapers, and on his social media platforms.

His works have been published in the Ethiopian Herald, Kalahari Review, Addis Admass and many more magazines. He is a full-time writer and a wanderer who loves meditating, listening to music, strolling, and discovering places, cultures, traditions, lifestyles, etc.

He is a storyteller: not as a profession but as a soulful pilgrim.  He believed that stories are our collective soul, our vitality, what gives us solace. Stories are what enable us not to give up on the human condition and to resist the chaos that surrounds us. The sincerest stories resonate from unknown and unknowable Arcadia. It is our eternal yearning to reach such a heavenly realm and feel satisfied. It is there that the divine resides. It is there where our dreams and nightmares sprang, wrestled, and were ushered towards us.

Attending stories and listening to tales provides us with a multitude of imaginative wings. It enables us to have acumen and be prudent. Storytelling, writing, and rewriting enhance his understanding of what should be done to save humanity and nature in its entirety. He is on a mission of constantly pursue it for more and more years to come.