The earliest published works were primarily translations or collections of traditional poems, fables and folktales, but the renaissance of Eritrean culture promoted by the British administrators after 1942 included the appearance of the first novels in Tigrinya.
[1] This literature, shared between Eritrea and Ethiopia, consisted mainly of historical tales about royalty and noblemen; ecclesiastical works, often in translation; and religious poetry.
[2] The continued dominance of Ge'ez as a literary language after it was supplanted by Tigrinya as a demotic tongue means that very little is known of 'low' literature prior to the arrival of European missionaries in the 19th century.
Two of the masse are accounts of the late-19th-century conflict between two chiefs, Ras Weldamichael of Hazzega and Deggiat Hailu of Tsazzega, an event which has continued to be the subject of folk narratives down to the present day.
[7] It is also a substantial presence in Kolmodin's collection, Traditions of Tsazzega and Hazzega, which forms a narrative of the history of Eritrea over the few centuries preceding the Italian colonization.
Finally, Faïtlovitch's Habasha Poetry is a collection of 125 dog'a poems, assembled from the preceding work of Winqwist and Twolde-Medkhin of the Swedish mission.
Three playwrights, in particular, namely, Solomon Dirar, Esaias Tseggai and Mesgun Zerai, brought fresh ideas from England and rejuvenated the Eritrean stage with their emotionally charged one-act plays.
[10] The only substantial fruit of this period was a further volume from Conti Rossini: his Tigrinya Traditional Proverbs and Songs was published in 1942, immediately after the end of Italian rule.
This was again a work in three sections: the first, a collection of almost 500 proverbs, with Italian commentary; the second, accounts of Eritrean traditions and lineage; and the third a mix of 86 messe, melke and dog'a poems.
It was edited by Ato Waldeab Waldemariam, another employee of the Swedish mission in Asmara, and published a wide range of fiction and non-fiction as well as news stories.
Ghebreyesus was a Catholic priest and teacher, and published his collection of a hundred stories, 3300 proverbs, and various poems in order to provide reading material for his pupils.
[13] Another novel, Dawn of Freedom, published by Teklai Zeweldi in 1954, has a similar theme, telling the story of several generations of one family opposed to Italian rule.