Through a rare autobiographical act, Zara Yacob, who acquainted himself with the teachings of the Catholic Church introduced by Portuguese Jesuit missions in Sixteenth-century Ethiopia, becomes the first self-conscious founder of a philosophical tradition in Ethiopia. Indeed, it is a mild exaggeration to assert that it is Zara Yacob who gave the continent of Africa an original autobiography, something that was at that time confined to literate traditions outside of Africa. His treatise is a masterful example of self-presentation, clearly and powerfully expressed in a captivating literary style.

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