ተልሚድ (Telmid)

ቅምሻ

The book called Telmid is a novel that stitches the soul to itself.

Its story traces the long, hard-won journey a person makes with himself. Some journeys begin from nothing; yet they end deep inside the soul.

Telmid is not just one person’s story. It is the story of a man who runs, a man who seeks a body, a man who dreams, and — in the end — a man who tries to understand himself. Telmid rises out of Ethiopia, passes through exile, reaches Greece, and meets Aniana; and there a new chapter of his life opens. Aniana was the source of the wisdom he carried within.

But Telmid’s story is not only a road story. The question hidden inside it is this: ‘What does a person truly want?’ As desires drag him in different directions like a chain, Telmid enters a struggle of his own against his longing.

Then he returns to Ethiopia. The great dream he had of writing, however, does not come about easily. He writes other stories, yet the story built on his own life trails behind him like an unfinished question. In this book exile is not merely a change of place; memory, too, follows as a kind of journey. A person may flee from yesterday, but he carries his memory with him. This is what makes Telmid a character in conflict not only with the outside world but with himself.

Reading Telmid, you do not follow a single story; you follow questions. Does a person flee from a place, or from himself? Is desire freedom, or a chain? Is it memory that reminds us, or time that makes us forget? Can a person write his own story? Enter Telmid’s journey not only to know the answers to these questions, but to seek your own.

‘Telmid’ is all our story.