This famous Ethiopian playwright, translator of several Shakespearian plays and a government official in the Ministry of Arts, was invited to Los Angeles to make a presentation in the Los Angeles Central Library on the 27th of April. He was invited by the Western Shakespeare Globe Club in Los Angeles. The club had a one-week event in the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles, and they held performances of plays, readings of poems in English and in translations to other languages, and a general discussion as to the relevance of Shakespeare in the present era.

Ato Tsegaye, who was introduced by a long time friend, Professor Shore of USC, started by asserting that Shakespeare must have had more than an outsider’s knowledge and understanding of Africa and the African psyche. This, Ato Tsegaye stated, could be seen in the portrayals of African characters like Othelo, renditions of fairy tales, stories of ghosts and witches as in Hamlet and Macbeth. In essence, he said, Shakespeare must have been a Moor and a witch to understand and write about witches as he did. In regards to the name Shakespeare, Ato Tsegaye said, “It is, indeed, rare to come across an Englishman named Shakespeare before or since.” He added, “… I have never seen any African who is not shaking a spear.”

Above and beyond Shakespeare, however, Ato Tsegaye went out of his way to show the African origin of all mythology: Greek, Roman, Hebrew and Babylonian. He gave quotations after quotations from many ancient symbolism used in the Egyptian gods Isis, Ra, Osirus, the daughter of Hathor or Atbara, and the Greek gods Zeus, Posidon, Oedipus and Aphrodite. He also showed irrefutable parallels between the stories of infancy of Sargon, Moses and Osirus. Using slides of pictures taken from Egyptian tomb drawings and sculptures, Ato Tsegaye demonstrated that Africa is the root and mother of all Greek and Roman culture, mythology and language.

In conclusion, Ato Tsegaye said, “… Shakespeare was rejected by the Queen in his life time because he used English in writing his plays. English at that time was regarded as uncultivated and the language not of court, but of the streets. And the Queen was of French and Norman extract. However, the writings of Shakespeare, not only in ghosts and fairy tales, but also in the intrigues is of relevance to us Africans than to Europe and the West.

Though well attended by many other nationals, there were merely half a dozen Ethiopians at that meeting in the Central Library. A couple of days later, however, Ato Tsegaye held an open meeting in Awash, an Ethiopian restaurant in West Los Angeles where he discussed in some length the origins and relationships of languages. The place was jam packed with listeners and Ato Tsegaye gave answers to some questions at the end of his presentations.