Fikir Iske Mekabir (Love To The Grave) is amongst the most important novels written in Amharic. Its author, Haddis Alemayehu, was an Ethiopian writer, statesman and a representative of the intellectual elite during the period of Emperor Haile Sellassie I (1930–1974). The aim of the article is to analyse the preface to the novel, where the author proposes a reform of the Ethiopian writing system as an example of the then expected changes, which were supposed to make the state administration more efficient. The analysis of the text is proposed along with a description of the period in which the Ethiopian Empire was to be transformed from the traditional model of administration and state rule towards one of modernity, as it is broadly understood.
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