Surafel Wondimu was born in 1974 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He obtained a degree in English Literature from Addis Ababa University (AAU) in 2006 and an MA in contemporary cultural studies at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies at AAU in 2010.
He has served as a lecturer and assistant dean in Humanities at AAU and also ran a private media organization called Aesop Communication, along with a nineteen-hour radio program on FM 97.1. In his academic and artistic endeavors, Surafel grapples with questions that stem from where he lives. His central question is “What does it mean to be human for a citizen” of this divided world, of Africa, of Ethiopia. In his scholarly, theatrical, and media work at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopian National Theater, and Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency, he has strived to address questions of power and subjectivity as reflected in Ethiopian cultural and literary productions. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Minnesota in the Theatre Historiography Program, minoring in Developmental Studies and Global Change. He was most recently awarded the prestigious ICGC-Mellon Scholar Fellowship and an August Wilson Fellowship from Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul.
