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The novels written between the 1960 aborted coup and the 1974 revolution are enlightened by this kind of revelation. Haddis Alemayehu’s Fiqir Iske Meqabir (Love unto Death), Berhanu Zerihun’s YeTewodros Inba (Tewodros’ Tears), and especially Dagniachew Worku’s Adefris (Trouble Maker), Be’alu Girma’s Ke’admas Bashagger (Beyond the Horizon), and Sibhat Gebre‐Igziabhier’s Letum Aynegalgn (The Night Never Ends for Me) hold tension between opposites – hope and despair. Though they desire change and proclaim renaissance, they have lost hope because of the confusion and anarchy created as a result of extremism and radicalism. Adefris, Ke’admas, and Letum, with their subversive manner of representation, are self‐reflective novels that deconstruct the past Ethiopian national imagery while critically engaging their own generation’s self‐destructive, nihilistic, self‐aggrandizing ego.

In Adefris, key natural, cultural, and historical components of the national imaginary are unsympathetically disfigured. The entire setting where the story takes place is described thus: “it looks like the storage where God dumped the junk that was left after He completed creating the rest of the world” (Worku 1970, 5). This place, however, is the birthplace of the female characters that represent ancient and modern Ethiopia – Tsione and Roman (connoting Zion and Rome respectively). The characters that represent the three major institutions – education, justice, and religion – are sent here for national service. In this place, which is a microcosm of Ethiopia, religion and history are subject to decadence. The way all the “great” kings are selected and listed sequentially in the novel, starting with Ezana of Aksum to Menelik of Adwa, is not usual. Their usual divine grace is absent. They go hand‐in‐hand with the commons and become part of the crowd by the use of a dash (–). What is worse, they have been swallowed up in an abyss just like the rest of life that is covered with dust and swamped with silt.

In Letum, Gebre‐Igziabhier escalates Worku’s decadence to cosmic decay. All the sacred secrets and religious ceremonies are satirically ridiculed. Ethiopia’s three thousand years of history have become sexualized. The young rebels make a mockery of their forefathers’ victory by comparing it to the “sexual victory” that had taken place in brothels. In Letum, the main imagery is filled with dislikable paints, designs, movements, situations, noises, and smells. In Ke’admas, we can think of the main character, Abera, as an embodiment of the hope and despair of the generation, and his cluttered house – the big, soundless radiogram that looks like a coffin, a painting bereft of beauty, curtains with black and golden lace, dark blood‐red color couches and carpet – as the country.

The novels’ existential ambivalence regarding their hope and disbelief must be interpreted within the context of modern Ethiopian education history. With the establishment of UCAA (later renamed Haile Selassie I University) in 1950 and those higher education institutions that flourished in the different parts of the country, the period has a unique place in the history of Ethiopian education. However, this phenomenon has put even the progressives in a dilemma filled with both hope and disbelief. As the prominent statesman and popular literary artist Haddis Alemayehu in his nonfictional Amharic book The Meaning of Education and School (1956) has shown us, the society had enough reasons for this dilemma. In this work, Alemayehu elaborated on the relationship between nation, national identity, and education to indicate the source of the hopes and wishes, which was the result of material prosperity and disbelief emanating from the societal chaos that resulted from the destruction of past and existing values. Although Alemayehu respectfully explained how the traditional knowledge system has “helped the society to build both spiritual and secular structures that kept it unified and maintained its freedom from any external power,” he informed us that this education was not enough to satisfy the needs of the new Ethiopia (1956, 107–108). Alemayehu, who put his hopes and wishes in modern education, advised that the modern education system should be founded on indigenous epistemology and knowledge production that has time‐depth and the institutions should be Ethiopian: “I think, in order for the modern education institutions to be the Ethiopian education institutions, the education they deliver should be relatable to the Ethiopian society’s history, ruling system, custom, culture and other identifiers, and communicated in its own language.” Alemayehu warned the generation’s fate may not be good “if the Ethiopian element that gives it life as an Ethiopian product is missing from the curriculum” (1956, 112).

The 1957 publication of Be’imnet Gebre‐Amlak’s well‐crafted novel, Lijjinnet Temelliso Ayimetam (Childhood Never Returns), with its remarkable setting, plot, and characterization, is an aesthetic imperative of Alemayehu’s thesis. In this novel, there are three characters of the same age whose education choices are picked by their parents. The man from a family that resents modern education and who spends his years in traditional school ends up being a beggar because he cannot cope with life. The family that ridicules traditional education and puts their child in missionary school sees their child become a drug addict. The third character, Berhanu Abbay, establishes his identity in a traditional education system at an early age and then acquires modern education. Berhanu is the incarnation of harmony envisioned by Alemayehu and Gebre‐Amlak.

Unfortunately, the state’s disregard of such advice and its uncritical imposition of western education created cultural dislocation and confusion. As a result, we witnessed student radicalism, nihilism, anarchism, and absurdism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This national‐generational predicament is what the novels portray in a concrete fashion. In Ke’admas, Abera questions himself while staring at the essenceless painting: “Who am I? What am I? – who decided that I become this thing? Me, myself? Or the society that raised me? Or the education institution that I passed through? What education institution! What would be the purpose of the institution? To skim through like a race! For what purpose! The purpose of education was to help everyone find one’s identity and talent. Who am I?” (Girma 2007, 7, italics added). As Abera has told us, “this thing” is a manifestation of his generation’s state of being and mind. He is “a worthless decayed thing” (8), “a putrid cabbage” (84), and “a chicken seated on a rotten egg … what is surprising is that he doesn’t even sense this bad odor” (126).

In Adefris, the young Adefris and the senior priest, Aba Yohannes, are parallel. Adefris has gone to the place for national literacy service, while the priest traveled for religious service. During Sunday service, the priest sits not in a church but under a Warka tree (a type of sycamore tree, indigenous to Ethiopia). While preaching about liberty, equality, unity, and sovereignty, the priest asks for donations to build a modern school where Ethiopian students can be educated without regard to differences based on gender, ethnicity, or religious affiliation. The Warka tree that Aba chose is over eighty years old, “respected and feared.” It is a place where society performs indigenous religious practices without any discrimination as to religion, age, or class. The priest makes his national ethos – “let’s unite and make our country great!” – concrete by proclaiming it under this tree, which is a national character found in most Ethiopian cultures and signifies diversity in unity. The tree is the society’s shared identity, where the unique values take refuge without force. By contrast, the third‐year student Adefris has become an agent of disintegration. He takes up any opportunity for parroting his “university education” authoritatively “to solve the society’s problem from the root” while ridiculing the values and beliefs that form the foundations of the society. Adefris disconnects one from one’s soul and destroys family, society, and even the “nation‐state.” He caused rivalry between Tsione and Roman (the historical and modern Ethiopia), who used to live in harmony before Adefris showed up. Following his death, Tsione becomes a nun while Roman’s fate takes her to a brothel. In this context, it would be difficult to imagine an entity’s fate becoming both monasticism and prostitution simultaneously. But Adefris makes it possible for us to see.

In Ke’admas, Abera’s house, which signifies the nation, is covered with death. The coffin, which was symbolized by a huge soundless radiogram, is used to signify the death of Abera’s mother, brother, and friend. In Letum, we find the young people trapped in a Wube‐Berha (brothel). This place under any context is a symbol of societal downfall. Wube‐Berha is a place where self‐mutilation takes place. The destruction of national ethos, characters, and images would finally lead the nation and generation to perish. Looking back now, we could say this dire prediction in the literary sphere reared its head in the political sphere when the 1974 revolution took place four years after the publication of these novels.