The goal of Nyala, named for a nearly extinct mountain antelope in Yirgu's Ethiopian homeland, is to capture and reflect the immigrant experience while also recording important aspects of the nations left behind.
Ethiopian publisher is looking for simple, noble, human stories
By Patrick T. Reardon
Tribune staff reporter
July 7, 2006
Yosef Temesgen likes doing the laundry.
A recent arrival to New York City from Ethiopia, Yosef is the narrator of Fasil Yitbarek's novel "The Texture of Dreams." He is in the basement of his building, sitting before a washer -- a machine he had never used back in Addis Ababa -- watching his clothing dance through the soapy water.
"There is something calming about it . . . ," he tells the reader. "Something I find soothing about gazing at the tortured whirl of a soggy bundle of dirty laundry tossing this way and that in the watertight belly of the white metal box."
Yosef is a fictional character, but many of his experiences during the eight-year period covered by Yitbarek's novel are common to the vast majority of immigrants to the U.S., such as difficulty communicating in American English, amazement at the huge portions in restaurants and confusion over where his home is.
That's why Fassil Yirgu, 58, owner of the Chicago-based Nyala Publishing (www.nyalapublishing.com), decided to publish the book last year -- that and the fact that, in its calm, diffident way, "The Texture of Dreams" is a sprightly read, equally thoughtful, witty and tender.
The goal of Nyala, named for a nearly extinct mountain antelope in Yirgu's Ethiopian homeland, is to capture and reflect the immigrant experience while also recording important aspects of the nations left behind.
"Our focus," Yirgu says, "is to bring people together so we can learn from each other and grow with each other."
In its 12 years, the little-noticed firm has published novels, academic studies, conference proceedings, poetry and history books on Nigeria, Ethiopia, Cameroon, India, the Philippines and U.S. residents from those nations. Yirgu is now considering a novel by a North Shore lawyer who came from Ghana, and is actively soliciting manuscripts from immigrants, particularly works of fiction.
Would he be open to a book by someone from Ireland or Poland?
"Absolutely!" he says. "It doesn't matter where I get the manuscript as long as it supports our goal and our mission -- to transfer positive culture into our lives, something that will teach us how to balance [home and U.S.] cultures."
Chicago writer S.L. Wisenberg, author of "Holocaust Girls" (University of Nebraska Press, 2002), has been a longtime friend of Yirgu and his wife, Pamela S. Brown, a former director of internal communications with R.R. Donnelley and now head of a software development firm. "I think what they're doing is very cool," she says. "This really is a Third World press."
Nyala, which initially began as a pre-press operation, doing typesetting and graphic arts for others, has been headquartered since 1986 in a tiny storefront at 1250 W. Addison St., just a few blocks west of Wrigley Field.
Like many an immigrant, Yirgu, who came to the U.S. in 1969 and graduated from Northeastern Illinois University with a B.A. in history in 1983, worked a variety of jobs as a young man, washing dishes in a restaurant, driving a cab and operating machinery in a printing plant.
He moved Nyala into publishing in 1994 when he brought to print "Aleka" by Ketema Desta, a translation and expansion of a novel Desta originally wrote in Amharic in Ethiopia. Since then, Nyala has published more than two dozen works.
Yirgu is particularly proud of a book that he and Brown edited together in 1996, "One House: The Battle of Adwa 1896 -- 100 Years," a collection of essays, poetry, art, fiction and history, commissioned by Nyala.
Although little known to Americans and Europeans, Adwa was a turning point not only in Ethiopian history but for all of Africa as well.
National, regional and ethnic leaders set aside their differences to repel an invading Italian army in the March 1, 1896, clash. And the Ethiopian victory set the stage -- and was a beacon of hope -- for the anti-colonial efforts across the continent over the next century.
"Many such things are footnotes in history to big mainstream publishers," says David Easterbrook, curator at the Melville J. Herskovitz Library of African Studies at Northwestern University, the largest library in the world for the study of Africa. "Because [`One House'] is an entire book devoted to that topic, it raises the historic visibility of the event."
Nyala, Easterbrook says, is a premier publisher of Africana in the U.S. "[Yirgu] fills a very important need in publishing in North America, publishing material about Africans and by Africans. Often, he's able to publish works that would fall through the cracks at other publishers," Easterbrook says. "We acquire everything he publishes that has to do with Africa."
Another fan is Benjamin Kwakye, a Lake Forest lawyer and Evanston resident, who has given his novel "The Count's False Banquet" to Nyala for possible publication.
Born in Ghana, Kwakye praises Yirgu for his "open-mindedness." He says, "Africa, being so diverse, it takes extra effort to appreciate the cultural norms that someone from Ghana would bring to the table compared to someone from Ethiopia on the other side of the continent."
An author of two earlier novels for other small publishers, Kwakye found many details in "The Texture of Dreams" that echoed his own experiences -- indeed, the experiences of all immigrants. "It's a difficult adjustment," he says. "It takes time and patience. There are definitely times when you think it's not worth it."
The message that Yirgu wants to send with Nyala's books is that immigrants, whatever their backgrounds, can learn from each other.
"I'm looking," he says, "for a simple, noble, human story -- provided it's a good story."
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A taste of `The Texture of Dreams'
In his novel "The Texture of Dreams," Fasil Yitbarek tells the story of Yosef, an Ethiopian immigrant to New York. Here are some excerpts:
- His American friend Mark: "[Mark] is a healthy Goliath with sleek bulges of muscles, and he eats as befits a hunk of his stature. . . . To Mark, eating is a routine full of noise, exertion and urgency, like stoking coal in a faltering steam engine. He chews just enough for the mouthfuls to force their way down his gullet without becoming stuck. Watching him somehow makes me think of a nursing jackal that quickly gobbles up big chunks of flesh to later disgorge to her pups."
- Summer in New York: "The searing whip summer wields on a plus-ninety-degree day like this stings my skin and makes me scuttle like an ant on a hot rock. . . . I am still filled with wonder by the hyperdynamics of the seasons, coming as I do from Northern Ethiopia where the climate is moderate. . . . Ironically, it was I who used to think that weather-craze was a unique fixation of Westerners. Whenever I came across a passionate account of the seasons in the Western literature I had read back home, I used to wonder what those great poets had smoked to go on raving about an autumn morning in the country at such great length."
Rain in Ethiopia: "When it rains in Dessie, you can't hear a scream in your own house, let alone out on the road. The roofs of houses are made of thin sheets of corrugated zinc, and a heavy downpour sounds like an apocalyptic hailstorm."
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From the catalog of Nyala Publishing
Over a 12-year period, Nyala Publishing has brought to print a wide array of works. Here are some titles:
- "African Tales in Igbo Proverbs" by Richard Mbachu.
- "Filipino-Americans: Journey from Invisibility to Empowerment" by Romeo S. Munoz.
- "Women's Work: A Crosscultural Comparison of Roles in Cameroon and India" by Astair GM Mengesha, a professor of women's studies at Arizona State University.
- "Clear Across the Bridge" by Athanasius U.P. Ohaya, a novel about a Nigerian immigrant to the U.S.
- "One House: The Battle of Adwa 1896," edited by Pamela S. Brown and Fassil Yirgu.
- "Conflict and Conflict Resolution: Proceedings of the 1st International Center for the Study of the Horn of Africa."
- "Building Community: The Filipino-American Council of Chicago" by Maria G. Acierto.
- "Ethiopian Students: Reflections on Ethnic Politics" by Solomon Terfa.
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preardon@tribune.com
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