A book written by Eyob Getahun
One of the winners of the Burt Literature Award for 2013
Reviewed by Fitsum Getachew
Behind the Invisible Bars is a simple story about the various facets of human nature in simple language; its multiple vicissitudes are narrated in easily understandable sentences and expressions. It is a story about love and what love can beget. It is also a story about the love of money that blinds people and incites to commit inexplicable, hardly imaginable crimes. It is a story about envy, jealousy, unscrupulous acts of greed and brutality. It deals with treachery, betrayal, breach of trust just for the sake of easy money, power and lust for vengeance. It is indeed a story narrated in an Ethiopian context, rather in a typical Addis Ababan context, one should add.
Be that as it may, Behind the Invisible Bars should be taken and appreciated above all as a true story of love, true human solidarity and affection that can breed even more love that can transform others towards a positive attitude and meaningful action. It is a story of perseverance, forgiveness, pardon and understanding all in one. Hence in my opinion, it is a story worth reading.
Meron, the principal character in the story, is a true symbol of love, but at the same time a bone of contention, a valuable asset to be exploited by greedy people, a really pitiful character victim of human greed and grudge, irrespective of her will. Almaz on the other hand, is portrayed as a person driven to commit any sort of crime in the name of vengeance. She is seen acting as a truly malicious, vicious person blinded by greed and lust, dissatisfied with her own life and not hesitant to destroy others for her personal and selfish ends, may be unscrupulous and desperate enough to go to any lengths to realize whatever she thinks she misses in her life. Such attitude of hers has led her to the extent of isolating herself from the entire world or society as it were, because she has adopted a sort of solitary self-imposed confinement, a life as if she herself were behind bars. Her thirst for revenge and retribution appears limitless that it has forced her to a certain way of hermetic life that practically relegates her to a sort of slavery.
Fanta on the other hand is depicted as a simple, naïve mercenary, ready to kill for a prize. Meron is defined as an unfortunate girl but eventually it is her sense of justice and patience and the love she nurtures for the disadvantaged, the derelict that paid her with saving her own life and eventually make her emerge from her tragic predicament with the assistance of her godsend saviour, Girum. It is her quality, her personality, her commitment that ultimately drags Girum to become her unlikely redeemer.
Behind the Invisible Bars is a simple but very significant human tragedy, human story that can teach our youths today that evil never pays, and eventually justice is bound to prevail over injustice, love and solidarity would triumph over hate and vengeance. Malice and cruelty, greed and treachery are bound to be defeated by the power of love, compassion, sincerity and integrity. I believe the core message of the story must be summarized in these points.
Furthermore, Behind the Invisible Bars can be considered a truly touching story that is not totally unheard of. Suffice it to read newspaper accounts of certain families, suffice it to listen to Police Programs on ETV or the various radio programs, particularly in our social context. It is to be experienced probably in our day to day life, more often than we may be ready to admit.
These days people are beginning to think that it is almost legal or common to commit all sorts of crimes in family or familiar circles either to avenge a presumed tort or wrong allegedly submitted earlier or even out of pure envy or jealousy of other peoples shining success stories. We find people like Almaz who are after other peoples fortunes and would not hesitate to kill if necessary to snatch or usurp other peoples riches. Rather they believe that if they killed discreetly they could enrich themselves without anyone going after them, with impunity, or without being discovered. They may temporarily avoid being caught by the law enforcement bodies, but would they ever avoid being tortured by their conscience? Are they not persecuted by it? They are seen continuously trying to look for shortcuts to riches, to wealth and comfort.
There are people such as Fanta who are ready to serve as instruments, as killers if paid a certain amount of money; but their greed is so limitless that they are bound to be victims of their own boundless desires and evil deeds. They are never satisfied and hence they continue to crave for more, blackmailing people more and more and trying to get more and more of other peoples property and riches. One seems to get intoxicated of the lust to take over other peoples fortunes, and this would eventually end up digging their own graves!
Meron is a wonderful and very pitiful character with whose tale one cannot help being absorbed and the kind of torts she had to be subjected to. Of course she definitely is the principal character in the entire plot as the story rotates on her. From a family of well off people she finds herself to be a poor, helpless blind beggar having made to undergo such a horrendous accident. In a way, she ends up being a victim of her familys riches, and the target of frustration and despair by her own close relative.
Eyob has written the story in a language that really befits teenagers as it is indeed meant to be so, and it addresses teenagers; it addresses teenager-related issues as well; it involves heavily teenagers. Meron is a teenager as is Girum. It is the story of love and solidarity, as I said earlier, between the two youngsters.
In the final analysis, it is the power of love and solidarity that introduced Meron to Girum and liberated her from her dark and desperate solitude and fear. It liberates her of her visual handicap. And she says it: “Girum, you are my light”! Even though she was deprived of her sight due to the greed of others, she was eventually compensated by the light brought to her with the love of Girum who reached out for her in her moment of extreme need, misery and despair. Simultaneously, Girum is seen benefitting from his introduction of Meron even if it was a casual incident that made them converge in one direction.
Meron showed Girum a new way of conceiving life and liberated him from the eternal escape from the law and law enforcement agents as he conceived the world as a place where he could live only stealing other peoples property or doing bad to others so that he can be OK. He thought there was no other life in the world for him but Meron made him appreciate that he would have peace of mind and rest if he engaged himself in normal straightforward, lawful activities, if he gave a chance to himself to try a new way of looking at life. The coincidence and the circumstances of their meeting, between the two principal characters of the story are engaging, and the way the language is constructed, the way the plot develops is full of suspense. Such emotional involvement is becoming another strength of Eyobs pen and his insight.
Behind the Invisible Bars is also about disability and hence a huge unaddressed social issue with all its challenges and the prejudice that people entertain towards people living with disabilities. It is about utter poverty because it is very difficult to be poorer than how Girum is depicted in the story. It is about desperation. It is about deprivation and division of families, their disintegration and that of the children. It depicts a picture of the unfortunate side of our society, the marginalized, and the derelict such as Girum. How can one be more desperate than the like of a Meron or a Girum? And yet it is thanks to these two characters that the writer manages to convey his core message. These two people come up with a huge success story and hence a positive message for our youths with their working together and bonding.
When I first began to go through the book, it took me a while to enter into the depth of the story and be absorbed, but later on, once I got into the body of the story, I just could not stop reading and was forced to halt only at the end. And yet I still wanted the story to continue because it looks like a fairy tale! This is definitely one of the strengths of the story.
The language and the originality of the plot with its unforeseeable developments have become a characteristic or trademark of the author who seems to drive his literary engine smoothly both in the Amharic highway as well as in the English one. Eyob is proving himself a truly engaging writer, capable of magnetizing the reader to his script just as he did with the short stories in KeMonalisa Jerba, (Behind Monalisa), in Amharic with his creative non-fiction Yaltenore Lijinet, (the Missed Childhood) a true and tragic story that rotates around an HIV positive family) reprinted more than 15 times, and with his novel, Alela Melkoch,(Pretty Faces) all three works written in very attractive language in Amharic and now his first novel in English with the title Behind the Invisible Bars. I have come to know that the author has written another best seller in English in 2007 titled A Lasting Treasure that as well won an international award just as his maiden work Behind the Invisible Bars did. He also wrote a book in July 2023 with the title The Battle for the Blue Nile, which rotates around the Nile river and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). How many of us are living behind invisible bars and yet we may not even recognize it!? Or admit it? I think this story is a sort of clarion call to wake up from our compartments, our cells, our prison holes, our indifference and apathy, our cynicism and stretch a hand to life, and the desire to live a truly worthwhile life! Not only for us but also for others! Only then can we appreciate why we are human beings as opposed to mere instinctive animals!
I say “Well done Eyob”. Continue to write and I hope this story will be translated in to other Ethiopian languages because many more people could access it easily and have the occasion to grant you the appreciation you deserve.
