Bewketu Seyoum is from Gojjam, Ethiopia, southwest of Addis Ababa. He studied psychology at Addis Ababa University and published his first collection of poems, Nwari Alba Gojowoch (Unmanned houses), in 2000, a year after graduating. He has published two further verse collections and two novels. His poetry has appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation and Callaloo. In 2008 he received the best young writer award of Ethiopia from the president. In 2011 he was attacked and badly beaten by a church deacon for writing a “blasphemous” article (“A Saint with No Legs,” www.thereporterethiopia.com). His story “Waiting” and two poems appear in WLT’s September 2012 print edition.