The research center hopes to do research on Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin’s literary works and to inspire the next generation Ethiopian writers.

Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin was born in 1936 in Boda, 120km from the capital near Ambo. He attended church school, where he became fascinated with the Ethiopian form of poetry called qene, and then a British school, where he became fascinated with the Western style of drama called pantomime.

Tsegaye wrote his first play when he was fifteen. After traveling on scholarship to various European theaters in 1959, he became director of the new national theater and has been the leading figure in Ethiopian theater ever since. Throughout the 1960s, he wrote and directed play after play. During this period, one critic has observed, Tsegaye changed Ethiopian theater. Read more