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Aida Edemariam

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Born

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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AidaE

Genre

Biography

Influences

Alice Munro
Anne Enright
Marina Warner
Hilary Mantel
Michael Ondaatje
Richa ...more

Member Since

December 2017

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Aida Edemariam, whose father is Ethiopian and mother Canadian, grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She studied English literature at Oxford and the University of Toronto, and has worked as a journalist in New York (at Harper’s Magazine), Toronto and London, where she is a senior feature writer and editor for the Guardian, writing on everything from politics to literature (essays on the academic novel, interviews with Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Edward Albee, Jorie Graham, Hilary Mantel etc) to reporting on the aircraft and North Sea oil industries. Her work has been chosen for Best American Essays, and nominated for a National Magazine Award and an Amnesty Media award. An early section of her first book was awarded a Royal Society of Literatu ...more

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What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Aida Edemariam I have published only non-fiction, and one of the best things about doing that is the finding out — to train yourself to listen, and to look; the priv…moreI have published only non-fiction, and one of the best things about doing that is the finding out — to train yourself to listen, and to look; the privilege of people talking to you, thinking aloud with you, feeling safe enough to confide in you. Traveling, sometimes, and finding words for what you see. That process of finding, above all - which is hard, and almost always frustrating (what ends up on the page is never anywhere near as good as the ideal in your head), but holds out a rather humbling promise of maybe, someday, saying something worthwhile.

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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Aida Edemariam Read. Look, and look again. Read — anything and everything, but with an eye on quality and especially with an eye on how quality is achieved (inspirat…moreRead. Look, and look again. Read — anything and everything, but with an eye on quality and especially with an eye on how quality is achieved (inspiration and talent can't be learned but an awful lot else can be). Look. Read some more. (less)

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Aida Edemariam’s books

Average rating: 3.55 · 858 ratings · 147 reviews · 3 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Wife's Tale: A Personal History 3.55 avg rating — 857 ratings — published 2018 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Saga eiginkonunnar: Persónuleg frásögn by Aida Edemariam (Goodreads Author), Karl Sigurbjörnsson ( Translator) it was ok 2.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2018	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	THE WIFE’S TALE: A PERSONAL HISTORY 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

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Aida Edemariam's Blog

Telling the wife's tale

I began listening to my grandmother properly — and with a tape-recorder — twenty years ago, when she was already in her late 70s (she died when she was about 97). I loved listening to her: her use of language was so musical, and apt, and vivid. She would have recognised Chaucer, I sometimes thought, her speech had a similar earthiness, a poetic, sophisticated seeming-simplicity that arose partly f Read more of this blog post »

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Published on December 30, 2017 13:15

Aida is Currently Reading

Aida Edemariam is currently reading

Winter (Seasonal, #2)

by Ali Smith

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Jan 10, 2018 12:31PM

Quotes by Aida Edemariam (?)

“Emperors had holidayed here between military campaigns, or used this as a base from which to launch them; Ahmed the Left-Handed had built a home here at the height of his jihad;”
― Aida Edemariam, The Wife's Tale: A Personal History

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Polls

Which book would you like to read in May/June 2019 for Eastern Africa?
(Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique, Réunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe)

Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

10 votes, 24.4%

Eve out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi

8 votes, 19.5%

Silence is My Mother Tongue by Sulaiman Addonia

8 votes, 19.5%

How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu

7 votes, 17.1%

The Shadow of Imana by Véronique Tadjo

4 votes, 9.8%

The Wife's Tale: A Personal History byAida Edemariam

3 votes, 7.3%

Green City in the Sun by Barbara Wood

1 vote, 2.4%

41 total votes

3 comments

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