Girma Fantaye

Girma Fantaye is a journalist, writer, and poet from Ethiopia who began his career in 2004. His work explores politics, social issues, the arts, and travel, and has appeared in various publications including Meznagna, Ethiomirror.com, Addis Neger, and The New York Times.

In 2007, Fantaye co-founded Addis Neger, an independent Amharic-language weekly political newspaper based in Addis Ababa, alongside five other journalists. He served as the paper’s deputy editor-in-chief as well as editor of the political and economic section until December 2009, when the newspaper was forced to shut down and he went into exile.

Following the closure, Fantaye continued his work in journalism as deputy editor-in-chief of the online platform AddisNegerOnline.com, launched with several former colleagues from Addis Neger in Kampala, Uganda.

Between 2011 and 2012, he was awarded the prestigious John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, where he focused on strategies to make exile media more sustainable.

In addition to his journalism, Fantaye is also a published author. His first poetry collection, The Quest for the Lost City, was published by Mahlet Publishing in Addis Ababa in 2012. His debut novel in Amharic, SELF Meda (Field of Queue), followed in August 2014.

Beyond writing, Fantaye has experience teaching Ethiopian history and politics and works as a translator from English to Amharic. With a background in business studies from Addis Ababa University's College of Commerce, he has also launched several social enterprise ventures.

Girma Fantaye was the ICORN resident in Ljubljana from 2013 to 2015.