Umbra regelui

by Maaza Mengiste, Gabriela Nedelea (Translator)

Roman nominalizat la Booker Prize 2020

Povestea femeilor-soldat care l-au înfruntat pe Mussolini. Un capitol șters din istoria Africii. O luptă care a devenit legendă.

Etiopia, 1935. Hirut este orfană și lucrează ca servitoare în căminul lui Kidane, ofițer în armata Împăratului Haile Selassie. Când armatele lui Mussolini se apropie, bărbații trebuie să se mobilizeze. Însă Hirut și celelalte femei își doresc să facă mai mult pentru cauza războiului decât să aibă grijă de răniți și să îngroape morții.

Când împăratul fuge și totul pare pierdut pentru Etiopia, Hirut vine cu o idee salvatoare: ca să nu-i lase pe soldați să-și piardă speranța, un țăran blând e deghizat să ia locul împăratului, iar ea devine garda lui de corp, inspirând tot mai multe femei să lupte pentru țara lor.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Africa, Ethiopia, Historical, War, Book Club

576 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2019

About the author

Maaza Mengiste is a novelist and essayist. Her debut novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, was selected by the Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African books and named one of the best books of 2010 by Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe and other publications. Her fiction and nonfiction can be found in The New Yorker, Granta, the Guardian, the New York Times, BBC Radio,and Lettre International, among other places. She was the 2013 Puterbaugh Fellow and a Runner-up for the 2011 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Both her fiction and nonfiction examine the individual lives at stake during migration, war, and exile, and consider the intersections of photography and violence. She was a writer on the social-activist documentary film, Girl Rising, which features the voices of actors such as Meryl Streep, Liam Neeson, and Cate Blanchett. She currently serves on the boards of Words Without Borders and Warscapes. Her second novel, The Shadow King, is forthcoming.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well. This is a story that deserves to be told. I learned more about Ethiopian history and culture than I knew before. There is some wonderful - sometimes stunning - descriptive writing. But I would remove the book jacket promise of this being "unputdownable". For me it was often an effort to pick up again. I gradually began to resent the book's claim on my time and credulity, and that is never a good sign.

My biggest gripe is that I found the writing overwrought in a way that was suffocating. Highly poetic wording is applied to everything, creating an atmosphere that is clearly intended to be rich but which smothered me with its heavy floral perfume.

"She is clothed but she is naked. She is a spectacle but she is invisible. She is a girl who has been split, and what stands here is both flesh and shadow, bone and silhouette, no more than air filled with smoke. And the cook. The cook. The cook."

Such passages, in isolation, make for perfect pull-quotes. When strung along for 424 pages, they place the focus on the writer's MFA training and not the story. I believe most stories suffer as a result, and this novel is arguably an example of that.

When taken to extremes the meaning of a passage becomes obscured, or lost altogether:

"This has always been at the center of his reckoning: that the beast is strongest in the quiet, that it gnaws first at its own throat, and all those men who search for its presence in treacherous sound will be destroyed by what rests mute in bright corners."

And, eventually, even phrases that could work well lie relatively inert on the page:

"Here he is, gifting himself the freedom to tremble."

The constant descriptions of light striking objects, illuminating characters, or traveling across landscapes became stale. This device occurs with such predictable frequency that it is rendered meaningless as a descriptive tool. Perhaps I am more sensitive than most, enjoying the gloom of the Pacific Northwest rainforest, but it was rare to go more than two or three pages without finding yet another invocation of the light. The presence of birds (usually blackbirds or crows, mostly wheeling overhead) is another descriptor Mengiste reaches for repeatedly and which also lost power.

Hirut's obsession with her stolen Wujigra rifle felt heavy-handed. By page 40 I was already dreading the inevitable return of the gun to its "rightful owner". I began to refer to the novel as "The Foreshadow King" and, in this regard, Mengiste did not disappoint. It doesn't help that the reader first learns of this weapon as it's being claimed (stolen) by another character. There's no sense of its talismanic importance to Hirut until after she's lost it, so her manic fixation on finding it once more precedes our understanding of why she is so driven. By the time I comprehended her motives, I was already tired of the Wujigra as plot element.

If this novel is meant to honor and showcase the role of women warriors in Ethiopia's fight for sovereignty (and that is its advertised claim), why do we only get details about Aster, Hirut, and "the cook" (among whom the latter two are only brought to battle as indentured servants and only participate by choice late in the game)? Why give us the names and autobiographies of almost twenty of Kidane's men but leave Aster's women nameless, faceless, and mere ciphers? We learn more of Seifu's wife, Marta, and a whore named Mimi (neither of whom are fighting) than of a third female combatant named Nardos. We see more of a household requisitioned for the front lines than of a community of women marching off to war. This is more of a domestic drama placed before a backdrop of foreign invasion, and that is less interesting to me. I realize this is partly a case of misplaced expectations, but those expectations have been set for anyone who picks up the book.

Each year I keep a (nerdy) running list of the books I've read, ranking them accordingly. Toward the end of this year's bonanza lies a cluster of novels I found problematic but which inspired others: Mostly Dead Things, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, and Freshwater. This one fits snugly below Marlon James for me. If you felt differently about any of these reads, you might very well feel differently about The Shadow King as well.

2.5 stars

[Paromjit · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the Booker Prize Shortlist!!

Maaza Mengiste's blend of poetic and lyrical historical fiction and fact that focuses on little known aspects of the beginnings of WW2 is an extraordinary and gripping literary accomplishment but nevertheless proved to be a challenge to read. It has echoes of Shakespearean plays and elements of classic Greek plays with its use of a collective chorus speaking for all with one voice, but the deployment of a lack of puntuation in parts of the storytelling made reading this difficult until I became accustomed to it. Mengiste writes a hauntingly heartbreaking and moving original story of Italy's ambitious Mussolini wanting to sweep away the historic shame of previous defeat by Ethiopia, seeking vengeance with a 1935 invasion of the country under Emperor Haile Selassie. It's a brutal, violent, and cruel endeavour, with Italy expecting a straight forward victory with their vastly superior technology.

Depicted within the narrative is Selassie's despair as he prepares for exile, photos with their snapshot description of what occurs and the connections that exist and grow between a orphan, the brave and courageous Hirut, who ends up working as a maid to a military commander, Dejazmach Kidane and his wife, Aster and an Italian Jewish photographer, Ettore Navarro, in the Italian army, a patriot who believes in the war, but forced to question it and himself as the never ending terrors and horrors unfold. For good reason, Hirat is a resentful and unhappy woman, but both she and Aster refuse to accept their role of burying the dead and providing aid to those wounded. Inspired by Hirat, the shadow king is created to raise Ethiopian spirits and fighting efforts. As women become Ethiopia's warriors, Hirat becomes a prisoner of war under the cruel Italian soldiers, to end up years later reflecting on this period of her life through the medium of photographs.

Mengiste is a truly gifted novelist, her multilayered writing is on a epic scale, capturing a wide and disparate set of perspectives on the tragedy of war, its repercussions, and its critical role in shifting and changing people. Her unique spotlight on women, all that they are, what they endure, the abuse and rape, and above all their resilience and remarkable strength in the war provides the backbone to this superb book. None of the subtly nuanced characters are black and white caricatures, where unexpected kindnesses can be found in the most unusual quarters. The author looks at both sides in the conflict, giving us an eye opening and thought provoking look at this period of WW2 history in Ethiopia and Italy's effort to enforce colonial rule. This is not going to be a book for everyone, but it will be for many readers who are looking for something different and for those interested in this period of history. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Canongate for an ARC.

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

This much lauded by the literati work on the Ethiopian defeat of fascist Italy in the 1930s, through the lens of Ethiopian volunteer woman fighters, has a very good heart and tells a much neglected tale but fails on some key counts. I can see why it was Booker Prize shortlisted, because although written by an African woman it could be just as well be written by an old white male European with it's humanising of some of the Italian characters and heavily literary writing style. So what, I hear some exclaim? This was a pre meditated attack on the only sovereign African nation by a fascist European state, eff the daddy issues of an Italian photographer, I only want to read as much as possible of the story of the amazing women that were part of this extraordinary episode in African history, without a Euro-centric balancing act or focusing on Ethiopian woman vs woman battles like this book does in its first half.

I know that it is loosely based on oral history, but the story is/was those woman fighters and nothing more. For the literati this is probably a smashing read, for a reader wanting an entry into Ethiopian history it feels watered down to appease European book critics. Maybe I'm too harsh? Come visit my re-read review in a few years. The literature and Italian stories made this a boring read in my opinion, I was always wanting more and never getting it. For the engaging and absorbing historical context, the least this book can get from me is a Three Star, 7 out of 12. Haile Selaisse! (And there's little or no real mention of the UK, Russian and French support of the Ethiopians.)

2023 read

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A TUTTO GAS



Maaza Mengiste adotta una scrittura che mi ha fatto pensare a quei quadri dell’Ottocento dove sono dipinti episodi del nostro cosiddetto Risorgimento (ma quel secolo ne ha prodotti di simili anche altrove): stendardi al vento, patriottismo, cuori che pulsano e sussultano, uomini slanciati alla pugna, camicie aperte sul petto a mostrare ferite con sangue copioso, braccia protese verso il cielo impugnanti l’asta di una bandiera, sciabole sguainate, donne eroine… morti che si presentano ai vivi per entrare nei loro corpi e infondere ardore e tenacia… vivi che parlano a fantasmi che si presentano sotto forma di brezza su cespugli di rose…
Tutto un cantar di gesta, un guizzare d’occhi, bagliori che ardono, tutto un attimo fatale (ma non fuggente) un dolore che si nutre al seno della crudeltà…

Mengiste aggiunge brevi capitoli di interludio e altri dedicati al commentario di un coro.
Difficile che l’enfasi si plachi. I vocativi fioccano. E per me è già tanto che mi vengano risparmiati gli esclamativi (ma le esclamazioni compaiono eccome).



C’è poi nei personaggi etiopi una diffusa tendenza alla testardaggine che qui a Roma si chiamerebbe essere de’ coccio, essere capoccioni: ma se ti dicono che tutti i fucili servono ai soldati, o Hirut, e il tuo padrone e protettore ti requisisce quello vecchio e fuori servizio che ti ha lasciato tuo padre in eredità, perché insisti e la meni per decine di pagine che diventano centinaia?! Tanto tu non saprai che fartene di quel fucile, hai una cartuccia sola, e il soldato che lo ha usato in battaglia al tuo posto non è riuscito a farlo funzionare, ma è invece riuscito a farsi sparare, e ore giace tra le fila dei feriti. E allora, perché insisti, o Hirut, e la meni per decine di pagine che diventano centinaia?!



Credo si capisca che ho faticato a entrare in sintonia con la scrittura di Mengiste. Una fatica prolungata e protrattasi per quasi duecento pagine. E poi, non è che dopo inizi a scivolare come acqua di fonte, fresco e cristallino come ruscello montano: no no, per carità, la Mengiste la mena tutto il libro con questo tentativo di tragedia greca e al contempo opera lirica, un po’ Eschilo e un po’ Verdi. Ho sofferto il suo stile veemente ed esaltato che ho trovato inutilmente ampolloso, magniloquente, ridondante. In estrema sintesi: esagerato. Mi è mancata l’ironia, mi è mancato il sottotraccia, il sotto-le-righe, un po’ d’understatement. Mi è mancato un tono alla Vuillard di L’ordine del giorno.



Ma la storia è di quelle che per me sono davvero molto interessanti: la guerra in Etiopia, l’ “impero” dei cialtroni fascisti, il riscatto dopo la sconfitta di Adua (mai digerita, la nostra prima Caporetto, a fine Ottocento), il nostro tentativo coloniale condotto non da “brava gente”, ma da un esercito con propensione al genocidio e ai crimini di guerra. In Etiopia furono sganciate più di mille bombe da 500 kg ciascuna di iprite (gas mostarda). Armi chimiche che la Convenzione di Ginevra vietava. Ma tanto gli “italiani brava gente” avevano le maschere antigas: erano solo i locali a respirare il gas (il conto dei morti etiopi arriva alla cifra di quasi trecentomila, vecchi donne e bambini inclusi). [Quel bugiardo matricolato nonché fascista mai pentito di Indro Montanelli, che non so perché viene spacciato come campione di giornalismo, tsk, era presente in Etiopia, ha visto tutto, ha sempre negato, e solo nel 1996, sessant’anni dopo ha ammesso i fatti.]



Da questo punto di vista Il re ombra è un libro importante, ha un alto valore storico e politico, perché di quei fatti offre una narrazione ben diversa dalla vulgata italica. Ancora più diversa perché mettendo in scena la resistenza etiope, racconta il fondamentale contributo delle donne, impegnate non solo in attività logistiche (cucine, ospedali, trasporti, collegamenti), ma anche in prima linea, donne soldato, vere amazzoni.
Ho trovato il racconto della Mengiste ancora più interessante perché introduce due personaggi nevralgici molto ben riusciti, a loro modo altamente affascinanti: Ettore Navarra, soldato fotografo, costretto a immortalare torture punizioni ed esecuzioni (volo dalla rupe), ebreo pressoché inconsapevole che il suo comandante risparmia da una brutta fine (arresto e probabilissimo campo di concentramento); e lo stesso comandante delle truppe italiane, Carlo Fucelli, sadico ma capace di gesti umani come quello di salvare il suo fotografo, un ufficiale assassino capace di momenti di luce oltre a quelli d’ombra.
Paradossale che i personaggi meglio descritti e più convincenti siano nella schiera ‘straniera’, tra gli italiani. Nel raccontare i suoi connazionali, in particolare il trio protagonista, il nobile Kidane, sua moglie Aster, e la serva Hirut, Mengiste si lascia andare agli eccessi che dicevo sopra. È soprattutto su loro tre che scatena il suo stile carico d’enfasi e veemenza, furia e impeto, col quale ho legato poco e male e gran fatica.



In una breve cornice iniziale e finale ambientata nel 1974, si svolge il lungo racconto dell’invasione italiana iniziata nel 1935 (senza annuncio di guerra, spacciando al mondo che li si andava ad aiutare da un re nefasto – in realtà all’epoca molto amato – e far progredire, tacendo l’uso delle armi chimiche, vietando foto e stampa che mostrasse quello che davvero accadeva) alla quale si oppone la resistenza etiope che riesce ad avere successo sei anni dopo, nel 1941.
Il re Hailé Seilassié, che in realtà era negus e imperatore, l’ultimo imperatore etiope (deposto nel 1974) va a Londra per denunciare alla Società delle Nazioni l’invasione italiana e l’uso delle armi chimiche. Ma la sua voce cade nel vuoto. L’imperatore non rientra in patria. E allora la Resistenza, in particolare Hirsut ha un’idea geniale: il contadino trombettiere assomiglia come una goccia d’acqua al negus – perché non vestirlo da imperatore, metterlo in sella al cavallo bianco dell’imperatore, mandarlo tra le truppe, a rincuorarle e incitarle? Ecco come nasce il Re Ombra.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is undoubtedly epic in scope and intention but I sadly found it slow and oddly uninvolving. It takes a long time for the story outlined in the blurb to emerge and I thought there would be more attention to women in war than there actually is. Mengiste's prose is packed with similes: some will find it lyrical, others a bit tiresome - a well-placed image, for me, is more memorable than a host on every page.

I like the sophisticated narrative style that shifts to include a chorus of voices, descriptions of chilling photos (which made me think of Abu Ghraib), as well as a more conventional 3rd person. There are complicated relationships here between the Ethiopian characters as well as their colonizers. And some scenes are memorable: a young wife on her wedding night, the hanging of a young man.

Despite all the good stuff, I never felt emotionally involved in the events in the way I wanted to be. Perhaps the scope is too large and the individuals don't emerge fully? Perhaps there's a lack of clarity and transparency in the storytelling that left me feeling that I was watching, rather than living alongside the characters? A fabulous topic and an interesting writer, just not my favourite book.

Thanks to Canongate for an ARC via NetGalley

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.

“She does not want to remember but she is here and memory is gathering bones”

I bought this book as I felt (not least to the back cover blurb by Lemn Sissay) and had predicted that it had a very strong chance of making the 2020 Booker longlist. I started, but did not finish, the book before the publication of the longlist confirmed my hunch, and now (just over 2 weeks later) having read the rest of the longlist returned to it and completed it (and the longlist).

The book is the author’s second after “Beneath The Lion’s Gaze” which tells the story of the 1974 revolution and overthow of the Emperor Haile Selassie – via the family of a Doctor (Dr Hailu).

This book tells the tale of another convulsion in Ethiopia’s history – the 1935 invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini – and both Haile Selassie (and less obviously) Dr Hailu play a crucial role: so that the book can be seen as something of a prequel in the story of both the characters and of the nation.

And in turn the 1935 conflict has its own prequel – in the earlier 1895-96 Italian/Ethiopian war, which culminated in the Italian defeat at Adwa and which weighed heavily thereafter in the national memory of both countries (in Ethiopia as giving the nation secure independence and as a standard bearer of pan-Africanism; in Italy as a sign of humiliation for the only recently-unified state – one which it was inevitable a populist government would look to revenge).

And this idea of history/prequel – and the shadow it casts over the present is a crucial one in the book.

Every character dwells not just on the history of their country but also that of their family: to such an extent that these lost family members are effectively a shadow cast in the novel; more influential in many cases to the present day actions of the novel’s protagonists than the living around them.

Hirut’s terrible relationship with Kidane (who claims to love her, but seems only to be able express this via rape) sits in the shadow of the sudden loss of both of her parents and her mother’s ambiguous relationship with Kidane’s father. She (like other characters) reminds herself and others of her lineage “daughter of Gettey and Fasil” as a sign of her continuing identity. And her father’s rifle – his Wujigra – takes on a totemic role during the whole novel (from the first 1935 chapter to the final paragraph in 1974).

Kidane and Aster’s dead son – and their different attitudes to mourning him – effectively destroys their relationship but also propels Hirut’s refusal to take a traditional female role and to instead fight, with her women followers, as an independent equal in the conflict.

The Cook plays a pivotal side role in the novel – first in Kidane’s household (and even earlier than the novel in the period before Aster married Kidane) and then in the Italian prisoner camp where much of the novel plays out. She, in deliberate contrast to other characters, refuses to discuss her name (let alone her lineage) as the only thing left that she has not had taken from her.

The Emperor is haunted – quite literally by the book’s end - by the (real-life) death of his daughter Princess Zebenwork, and by the fear that he effectively abandoned her to a loveless marriage at a young age and to death away from home – the resulting breech with a rival branch of the royal dynasty (that he had effectively sacrificed her to try and heal) by the time of the book fatally wounds his own kingdom, with Zebenwork’s widower going over to the Italians. Later we view the emperor during his exile in Bath – reflecting on his memories of the kingdom.

Hailu loses his brother in the very early stages of the war (I think his son – a key character in “Beneath the Lion’s Gaze” - is named after his dead brother).

The loss of their sons in the early part of the conflict drives the members of Kidane’s army onwards – during their key attack some of them hold up pictures of their lost ones and shout their names in vengance.

Fucelli (effectively representing the Italian regime) is haunted by a past attack that he survived and then by a humiliating attack perpetuated on him by one of the evening Ethiopian fathers (these I think effectively representing the Battle of Adwa) – and instead aims to humiliate and terrorise the Ethiopians.

Ettore (Navarra) photograph’s the Italian invasion – initially through choice but later forced as part of his military duties to document the atrocities and humiliations that the military carry out on the Ethiopians; both for propaganda purposes in Italy and to terrorise the Ethiopians – but instead acting (as above) to fuel their vengeance. His time in Ethiopia is shadowed by both the fate and the lineage of his parent. The Jewish background of his father: condemns his parents to death in the growing Fascist regime back home; uncovers a hitherto unknown to Ettore truth about his father’s even earlier life and involvement in yet another piece of foreshadowing in the Odessa Pogroms; compromises Ettore’s own safety so that he has to comply with the requirement to document what he would rather turn his camera’s gaze from).

Ettore’s photos and his secrets– buried by him (symbolically) underground, retrieved and unburied (literally and metaphorically) by Hirut, and viewed by her in a café in the very last days of the Emperor’s regime (in 1974) effectively act as the underpinning of the novel. As she flicks through the photos, they are described in words in the text, while the wider story behind the pictures forms the main skeleton of the novel’s narrative impetus (remember “memory is gathering bones”).

And the book’s title is taken from Hirut’s recognition that the most lowly member of the army Minim ( whose name “nothing” captures his perceived value and self-worth) is effectively a double of the now exiled emperor and can be used to rally the demoralised Ethiopians.

There are also more mythological and artistic echoes.

The chorus chapters are of course a deliberate echoing of the Greek mythological retellings – and serve to represent the collective memory of the nation.

Roman legend is seen in Simonides whose well-known memory technique is important to the Emperor’s reign (his ability to remember connections, family details and secrets about his most prominent followers is vital to the web of loyalty and patronage that holds his kingdom together). Crucially of course though Simonides technique was forged in tragedy and his ability to remember the placement of a group of the now dead prior to the disaster that killed them all.

The opera Aida (an Ethiopian princess) forms the Emperor’s key listening during the early stages of the invasion – as he both seeks to understand how the Italian invaders might view Ethiopians and reflects on how its themes (and the role of Aida’s father – King Amonasro - mirror his own life and family history.

And it is no surprise then that all of this comes together in the almost final scene of the novel – as Ettore and Hirut meet, a meeting entirely facilitated by Dr Hailu. They meet to discuss Ettore’s photos and for Ettore to try and retrieve the only letter he received from his father after war was declared. Their meeting is joined by the soon to be deposed Emperor, in disguise, unknowingly, as Minim – having been previously visited by the ghosts of Simonides, Amonasro and Zebenwork (remember again the idea “memory is gathering bones” )

And it climaxes in Hirut reciting the names of the now dead who fought for Ethiopia’s freedom 40 years earlier

Interestingly though I have to say that this weighting down with history and shadow effects the reading experience of the novel. It feels like every scene is weighted down by portent and every paragraph shadowed by metaphor. And the memories and the cast of shadow characters can rather obscure the reader’s understanding of the novel’s present day, adding an additional layer of filters that can rather blur the transparency of the ostensible main narrative.

But overall this is a fascinating novel and one which I think would repay a re-read.

“Tell them Hirut, we were the Shadow King. We were those who stepped into a country left dark by an invading plague and gave new hope to Ethiopia’s people”

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ended this book in tears and I'm not sure I can articulate why. It starts and ends in 1974, with an old woman walking with a box of letters and photographs. The majority of the book is about the second Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s, the emperor living in exile, and the women who fought to protect the shadow king. This is on the shortlist for the Booker Prize and is a strong contender.

Those who liked the artifact story structure of Lost Children Archive will like how the author uses the photos here - even better, the photos are real! I learned a lot about her research in this talk she gave for the New York Society Library.

[Katia N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this, I remembered a line long time forgotten, but the line that has helped me to go through a lot when I was younger. I am not even sure where it is taken from. It might be from “King Lear” or it might be from "Mary Stuart" by Schiller. I cannot find it through the search as I know it only in Russian. But it is something like that:


“Here, they might treat me indignantly but they will never manage to deprive me of my dignity.”


In those days, I called up this phrase when faced with a potential humiliation or something more sinister. And it has always helped me through. It is probably something similar to Michel Obama’s “When they go low we go high.” But more personal than that. 


And this book is about this. It is about dignity in the most difficult and tragic of circumstances. It is about sticking with it when everything else is lost. It is about not giving up. 


It is an epic. It is a book about war. And like other good books about war it contains a lot of violence but a lot of observations on the human nature as well. Unlike the majority of books about war, it deals with the role women play when they fight shoulder to shoulder with men.  Strangely, there are not many books dealing with this. I can only recall the oral history The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich. There, the women who survived were given the voice to tell how it was to be a soldier in a predominantly male affair. Both books show that if you are a woman your war often does not end at the battle. You still have to stay alert to violation and cruelty even surrounded by the men of your own side. 


Here, the action takes place in Ethiopia when the fascist Italy invaded its territory in 1935. The Emperor has escaped to England. But many people he left behind put on a proper fight against much better equipped and numerous invaders. I did not know much about this particular conflict or the country. But the themes the author touches upon are timeless and universal. And she manages to convey them without loosing the sense of place. 


This is a narrative which is relatively hard to get into. It is somewhat disorientating as it structured in unusual way. It builds around a number of photos, many of them taken by the one of the characters, Italian soldier, Ettore. On the request of his superior, who is a properly cruel man, he documents the doings of the occupiers including the atrocities . A photo carefully described would be a starting point which then would let us dive into an epic scene or a stream of memories. There are no physical images in the book.  I’ve seen the similar trick in a very different text, wonderful book by Marina Stepanova In Memory of Memory which is currently being translated to be published next year. There, initially I was not sure it worked. With our culture dominated by the visuals and all “show not tell” business, describing photos without presenting them seemed indulgent. But I’ve slowly come around to this. I can see now why. It ignites the imagination of the reader and leaves more space to form her own view. It has worked even better here for me. But it requires the perseverance. In my case i think I was greatly rewarded. 


The style feels slightly detached as if from the point of view of a camera or an external observer. The writing is in present tense and builds up slowly. It is very effective when dealing with a dramatic scene be it a battle, execution or other cruel episode.  It has got this cinematic quality of slowing dramatic actions and lets us be present inside the characters’ heads, focus on the details in real time without loosing the sense of drama. This simultaneous feeling of detachment and closeness is not unlike I would imagine a person would feel under such extreme duress when the time slows to standstill and one feels separate from the body as if being faraway, not thinking, not taking it all in, observing oneself externally in order to survive.

Sometimes I wished she would switch the gear a bit in terms of pace to differentiate between those epic scenes and more intimate parts or backstories. But it was not the case. It might make the reading easier, but still in my view it worked as it was.


We have a camera gaze within the story of course. But it is a very different one. Ettore’s camera is the weapon.  Maybe it is not quite a rifle, but one can violate a fellow human being with it just as well leaving scars on a soul impossible to heal. It also establishes a peculiar relationship between the victim and perpetrator - a weird sense of intimacy seen through the lens. 


Another interesting element of how this story is told is the chorus. These are vignettes performed by the collective voice like in a Greek tragedy. Last time I’ve met with the chorus was in Faust where they were contributing to Faust meeting with the Helen of Troy. It seems Mengiste wanted to highlight this echo of similarity of female fates through the wars and the centuries. 


The book is very powerful in showing the interactions between the enemies. The Ethiopians fight for their land. The Italians try to break their spirit, not that much through the military actions but through dehumanising them. They are doing some monstrous acts. But Mengiste does not avoid complexity. They are depicted as fallible human beings. Some of them are afraid, some repent, some fall the victims of other crimes at the end. Collectively they fail. Ethiopians faith is stronger. However, their thirst for revenge and the force of their hate still leave the space for occasional acts of mercy, but never for forgiveness, even after many years. 

“Here is the truth he wants to ignore: that what is forged into memory tucks itself into bone and muscle. It will always be there and it will follow us to the grave. “

This raises another question which resurfaces quite often in the recent debates. Can we forgive without forgetting? And if not, what specifically we should try to remember from out past and to teach out children? Can we remember the victims but let the perpetrators disappear in a memory lane? There is no definite answer. In this novel, Mengiste nods to Daša Drndić while her character closer to the end of the book recites the names of the people perished in the conflict. I found it very poignant.


It is a serious novel. It is not always easy to read. Not everything worked for me. But it is a proper powerful work of fiction which has moved me and has created a lasting impression. The author takes the risks with this structure. She goes against the grail of how the story should be told, especially in the English speaking world. And this has to be applauded and rewarded.

[Prerna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the Booker prize 2020.

What he knows is this: there is no past, there is no “what happened,” there is only the moment that unfolds into the next, dragging everything with it, constantly renewing. Everything is happening at once.

Every account of history is conditioned by a before and an after. This is a story set in the 'during', in that point of convergence that evades any attempts at comprehension. It's a story of people that traditional accounts of history would rather pretend don't exist: women who fought in wars alongside men.

When the cruelties of wars are ungraspable, and the event itself is imbued with a remoteness, the stories of the fallen and the victorious merely become shadows. And so Hirut, the protagonist, is here to remind us that it is these shadows that made victory possible, she is here to help us see people at war for what they are.

O blessed daughter, you who spin in slow circles. You who spread your arms and lift your face and follow the spiraling sway of the Earth. How long will you keep pace with its momentum? How long before you see that there is nowhere else to go? There is no escape but what you make on your own.

War forces people to turn into human paradoxes, to forget their past-selves, to renew every essence of valor they've held captive within themselves and to amplify it, to forge a new selfhood amidst growing constraints. This book with its evocative, stunning prose perfectly encapsulates the resistance people are capable of putting up in a bid for freedom and the right to ascertain their collective dignity.

Ettore, bear witness to what is happening. Make living your act of defiance.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Violence is the language of power that is afraid.
Maaza Mengiste, Festival degli Scrittori, 2015

In Celia Hawkesworth's Best Translated Book Award winning translation of Daša Drndić's novel E.E.G.: A Novel, the narrator and authorial alter ego, Andreas Ban meets, in Italy, a 'young Ethopian-American writer Maaza Mengiste'. This was based on a real-life meeting between Drndić and Mengiste at the Festival degli Scrittori in Florence in 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYX28...

And Mengiste credits the conversation with changing this novel completely - indeed she tore up her previous 800 page draft and started again: (https://thecreativeindependent.com/pe...)

We were in Italy having wine. She was smoking. I was talking to her about the troubles I was having finding the story in my new novel. I had done so much research for it, but the story was escaping me. She took a puff of her cigarette and said, “You know, that’s the trouble with all you Americans. You care too much about stories. Fuck stories. Who cares about stories? What do you want to say and how do you want to say it?” I thought back to that moment when I was sitting at my desk and I’d just come back from meeting with my editor. What do I want to say?

I thought, “If I could do anything I wanted and I’m not worried about telling a story but I’m just letting the story come out, what would I do then?” Then I threw away the whole manuscript. Tossed the entire first draft of the book. I started again from page one.

And there seems a direct nod to Drndić's influence in the list of the dead with which Hirut opens and close her retrospective account of the Ethopian invasion.

Another acknowledged influence on this novel is Svetlana Alexievich's The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War IIThe Unwomanly Face of War, which, in Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation states that “Everything we know about war, we know with ‘a man’s voice.’" (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...)

But perhaps most striking to me was the use of photographs - it's become almost habitual to preface that with "Sebaldian" except here the photographs are, with two exceptions, not included in the novel.

I made a very deliberate decision not to put photographs in the book. There are two, the bookends. Writing the word-images inside book was my way of thinking about how to move beyond “bearing witness”—where the witness is always outside and bearing the burden of witnessing—and the act of looking is an unwieldy responsibility that’s put on that person, and it’s not a natural thing, it’s a weight. I’ve been questioning for a long time how to eliminate that. The photograph is a weapon, it’s a sign of power and it’s still being turned on people. Those who are looking are not the ones bearing anything. It is those depicted in the frame who hold the balance of the weight. How do we honor that, respectfully, and see ourselves in every image we make?

From https://africasacountry.com/2020/05/c... and see also https://lithub.com/writing-about-the-...

From a personal resonance perspective, the novel has the Emperor in exile in the UK in Bath, which was indeed where he settled. But before that he first stayed in Wimbledon at the house of the sculptor Hilda Seligman.

She then sculpted a statue of Haile Selassie which until recently stood in Cannizaro Park, a few minutes walk from my house. The statue was a place of pilgrimage for Rastafarians amongst other - https://i.ibb.co/VBd1fz1/800px-Canniz...

But this July, around the time of the Black Live Matters protests, a crowd of 50-100 people destroyed the statue. There was some initial concern it was an anti-BLM act, but it turned out to be a protest on behalf of the Oromo ethnic group in Ethiopia at the murder of the singer Hachalu Hundessa.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-afri...
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime...

Which is a reminder of the importance of symbols, but also how they have different resonance for difference people. For Seligman, the statue was a symbol of those who resisted fascism, and indeed a reminder of the lack of resistance offered by the League of Nations (in Spain as well as Abyssinia). To those in the Rastafari movement, a symbol of divinity. But to many of the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, a symbol of oppression.

The Shadow King isn't an easy read - every sentence is weighted down by history and foreboding - but an impressive one and this would be my pick for the Booker Prize.

4.5 stars

Some excellent reviews by GR friends:
Prerna -https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Graham - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Katia N - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deservedly shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020

Another impressive contender on what is looking a very strong Booker longlist.

Mengiste's story of women fighting in Ethiopia's war against Mussolini was inspired by her own great-grandmother who fought in Haile Selassie's army, but this is very much a fictional story set in a real historical context.

The main protagonist is Hirut, a downtrodden servant girl and orphan. The first half of the book is quite slow moving, establishing the complex nuances of the relationships between Hirut and the three other members of the household - its head Kidane, his wife Aster and their cook who is never named. This demonstrates the limited opportunities for women in early 20th century Ethiopia. Hirut has a rifle inherited from her father, who fought against the first Italian invasion. This is discovered by Aster, and when the war starts Kidane leads a mobilisation of his people and commandeers the few weapons and limited ammunition available.

Aster is determined to contribute to resisting the invasion, and starts to organise the women. The local army is fairly powerless and Selassie flees to England, but within Kidane's army is a man who looks like Selassie - they dress him up and Hirut becomes his guard.

Much of the action takes place in a prison which is run by the brutal Carlo Fucelli. One of Fucelli's men is a Jewish photographer Ettore Navarra, who forms a fragile bond with the imprisoned Hirut. Many of his photographs are described in detail.

There are interludes describing Selassie's own story, and the framing chapters describe Hirut's reunion with Navarra in 1974.

[Ace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't in all honesty say that I enjoyed this book. I thought it was going to be a sure bet, historical fiction with heroic women fighting for their country.
I was completely overwhelmed by the timeline, and the people and the war and the politics. We visit the minds of so many men and women and I failed to sink my teeth into any of it. An important book and a learning experience, but as I say, I didn't enjoy the scope and detail.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Tell them, Hirut, we were the Shadow King. We were those who stepped into a country left dark by an invading plague and gave new hope to Ethiopia's people."

The writing in The Shadow King is glorious. Mostly set around the second Italo-Ethiopian War, it exemplifies the courage of the women who served Ethiopia with steadfast honor. A story that is so rarely told, it was in part inspired by Mengiste's own great grandmother. As the eldest child in her family she volunteered herself to go to war. But as a young girl in 1930s Ethiopia she was not seen as fit for war, but for marriage. Her father gave his own gun to her older husband and asked him to represent the family instead. But she was headstrong and not easily deterred. She sued for ownership of the gun and won. As she went off to war she loudly proclaimed the might of the Ethiopian army. It is her spirit that lives on in the character Hirut. Although the book is told from multiple perspectives, includes a full Greek chorus and gives the reader snapshots of Emperor Haile Selassie's movements and deliberations, I was drawn to these women's strength, fortitude and grace under pressure. I found myself thoroughly taken away by the writing and story alike. The Shadow King is a powerful and moving tribute to Mengiste's homeland and the women that gave all of themselves.

Special thanks to NetGalley, W.W. Norton & Company and Maaza Mengiste for access to this book.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5, rounded up.

To be completely candid, I would NEVER have read this book if not for its Booker nomination and my wanting to be a 'completist' of the longlist (for the 7th year in a row), since the subject matter held zero appeal for me. This was more due to the fact that I can name on one FINGER the number of war novels I have truly enjoyed, rather than its Ethiopian setting, or feminist bona fides - although those weren't great incentives for me either. Although I wouldn't say I exactly went into this as a 'hate read', if not for my vow to get through the longlist, I would have DNF'd it at several points along the way.

For the first 45% (say, up until the hanging of one semi-major character), this was so inert I despaired I would ever get through it. And as it was, I raced through the final 55% just to get it over with - although it did marginally improve, once the bare bones of a plot began to take hold. I was still confused and frustrated during much of it, primarily in the prolonged battle scenes that really added nothing. I gave up counting, but I believe there were also a minimum of five violent rapes against very young girls in the first half that I could have done without.

Although individual scenes sometimes came alive, the fact that the prologue lets the audience know that the two major characters survive the war dissipated any suspense as to their welfare. And unless I somehow glazed over it, my favorite character, the whore slash spy Fifi/Ferres, is not even given an end to her storyline - she just kind of disappears. :-(

So why even a begrudging 2.5 stars? Well, I DID learn some history, and although there were a surfeit of clunky passages (the penultimate scene in which the ghost of Selassie's daughter, the father of Aida, and the Greek philosopher Simonides come to visit the emperor being a real howler), for the most part the prose was decent - and it WASN'T as awful as either The New Wilderness or Burnt Sugar, so I had to be a bit generous. I really hope it doesn't make the shortlist - but given my track record (and the fact that two of the judges are championing it), it has a fair chance of actually winning! :-(

Update: So, of course, probably for the reasons GY and I discuss below (i.e., Chair Busby's championing of the two African authors) this DID make the shortlist, and it or This Mournable Body will undoubtedly win. Which is a shame, because for me, Shuggie Bain is the clear standout of the shortlist. But being the only white male on the shortlist, Douglas Stuart has zero chances - the optics would just be too awkward. :-(

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
An account of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s, very loosely based on the experiences of the author’s grandparents. Mengiste focuses on the role of women soldiers. Haile Selassie plays his part as does a look alike. This is about the importance of memory. It starts and ends in the 1970s, although most of it is set in 1935-7. Mengiste’s characters are powerfully drawn, even the two primary Italian characters. The story of war is often masculine, but this was not true for Ethiopia in the 1930s. As well as portraying women at war Mengiste also shows that being a woman in the world can be a type of warfare in itself.
We are guided through the novel by Hirut. She is a servant who has been orphaned and has a complex relationship with her employers Kidane and Aster. Another significant character is Ettore Navarra, an Italian soldier who takes photographs of everything, including prisoners and executions. The photographs take on symbolic meaning. Ettore is Jewish and the increasingly difficult situation for Italian Jews becomes obvious as the novel proceeds:
“The boundaries of bodies are the least of all things”
This has been called a modern day Iliad, and I get that, this is an often forgotten struggle and there are now Ethiopian voices addressing yet another European imperialist past. This is a very good historical novel which gives some life and agency to those who have been written out of history and their past is being reclaimed.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️s. Wow!! So let me just start by saying this: Maaza Mengiste is an INCREDIBLY talented writer! The Shadow King is set during the second war between Italy & Ethiopia in 1935. The first war between the two countries occurred in 1895 & when Italy lost it was hugely embarrassing, not only because it was the first loss by a European nation to an African country, but also because it left Ethiopia the only African nation, in the Horn of Africa, not under European rule at the time. In 1935 Italy was under Mussolini’s thumb and Il Duce was determined to make up for that loss of pride. I’m ashamed to say, I knew nothing of either Italo-Abyssinian wars (even though the second one was really the start of WWII) and had to do some serious research.

This novel really focuses on the transitions people experience during war. The Ethiopian women, who went from being housewives, to nurses aiding wounded soldiers, to warriors and that change — in the main two characters, Aster and Hirut, in particular — is sad but moving. Then there’s the Italian soldier, Ettore, who is made to photograph the attrocities his countrymen are committing. We see his transition from loyal soldier, willing to follow all orders without question, to a man struggling with his sense of self & existentialism (not to mention his conscience), as he knows what is being done is wrong and , no matter how much he searches, can’t seem to find any meaning in it. Another big focus is what war means and looks like to each character. From the Emperor, to his rich generals, to the poor farmers- turned soldiers, to their wives- turned warriors, to the enemy generals and soldiers— we see all of their perspectives & how unbelievably different they are. War has a different meaning and serves a different purpose for each character.

The blurb for this novel describes it as having “lyrical prose” and I think that is a great word for it, lyrical. One of the characters in the book uses the opera Aida as an escape from the stresses & turmoil of daily life, and the novel itself is operatic or Shakespearean...There are normal chapters, filled with heavy drama and of course, tragedy but randomly dispersed between these are sections titled: “chorus”. Now, this is a technique that was used in Ancient Greek plays, as well as more modern works inspired by them (like Shakespeare’s Henry V) the Greek chorus is: “a homogeneous, non-individualised group of performers, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action” (Wikipedia, Greek chorus). That’s a perfect description for their use in this novel. These sections are typically short & are told in a collective voice. We get a quick break from the current story & are shown a scene almost as if we are sitting in the audience during a performance, we have an all-seeing vantage point. There are also “interludes” which are mostly written from the viewpoint of the emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie (who really was the emperor at the time), and his struggles and feelings about having to flee his country & people during the war. Then there are sections titled: “photo”, which are short descriptions of a snapshot in time, that are so easy to visualize. The reason I’ve described the writing style of this novel so much is because it’s so unique in modern novels and it makes this book!

Maaza Mengiste took a big risk using such a unique and stylistic writing method but it works so well. It sucks you in and you feel as if you’re in Ethiopia running into battle alongside the warriors. I can see where this would not appeal to all reader’s tastes but it definitely worked for me. This is a heartrending but beautiful book written by an author with immense talent and I highly recommend it! I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

Update 8/1/20: this book just made the 2020 Booker Prize longlist! My congratulations to Maaza Mengiste!

[Neale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.


The backbone of the narrative is the war that was fought between Ethiopia and Italy when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, with Mussolini a fascist and megalomaniac, wanting to erase the shame of their defeat at the hands of the Ethiopians years ago, and establish his new Roman empire.

However, the story revolves around the women who fought in the war and the integral part they played and yet seem to have been forgotten by the historians.

Although the story is about the invasion and war between the two countries it is told on a very personal level, mainly through the eyes of two female protagonists. Aster and Hirute. Hirute is an orphan who has been taken in by Aster’s husband Kidane, another character who features heavily in the narrative. Kidane was friends with Hirute’s parents before they died, but in taking in Hirute, he causes friction and problems between himself and Aster, and Aster and Hirute. Aster is still grieving from having lost their son.

Italy at the time of the invasion is a modern army, fully equipped with tanks, aircraft and modern firearms. Compared to this the Ethiopian army is woefully underequipped with ancient rifles, and no tanks, or aircraft. Kidane is the leader of the resistance and quickly goes about organizing his ragtag army, relegating the women to a subordinate roll of taking care of the supplies, tending to the wounded, etc.

However, we come to see just how important their role is at the end of the book.

Bringing the whole conflict down to a personal level works brilliantly and we live through the struggles and the conflicts which affect the characters. The problems with relationships. There are no saintly characters here, they all have flaws and dark sides which they must deal with daily.

What makes the book even more interesting is that we are also privy to the Italian side of the conflict through two major characters, Fucelli and Ettore. Both these characters are a joy to read. Fucelli is the leader of the army and is a horrible fascist, while Ettore is a soldier with a camera whose role is to document the war. Ettore struggles throughout the entire war, condemning himself for moral weakness. Ettore is Jewish and soon finds out that his own people are being ostracized back in Italy, which only adds to his confusion and sense of belonging. He is a character in turmoil.

Another point which just adds to the book, is the title. When the war starts the Ethiopian Emperor flees to England and we are given access to his ponderings and ruminations through interludes which are interspersed throughout the chapters. “The Shadow King” refers to Minim. A name that translates to mean “nothing” Minim who bears a striking resemblance to the emperor is set up as the “Shadow King” dressed as the emperor riding his horse in battle to inspire his people on to victory.

However, ultimately the story belongs to the forgotten women who played such a major role and sacrificed so much for such little acclaim. Hopefully, many people will read this book and realize the part they played and should be remembered for.

At the end of the book, in the author’s notes we hear of her great-grandmother Getey. When the Emperor ordered families to send their eldest sons to the war. Getey volunteered because the son was not old enough. Her father did not agree with her and gave the gun, which features heavily throughout the novel, to her new husband. Getey sued, got the gun, and proudly marched off to war. What an amazing woman. 4.5 Stars!

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

War is absolute hell and if you don't believe that just ask a woman. Wow this was an uncomfortable book. Ethiopia was in the middle of a war with Italy. Citizens had taken up arms to support their emperor Haile Selassie. Warrior citizens aka rebels have no rules of war or ethics to uphold. Culturally Ethiopia is pretty much in line with most countries in that the patriarchy must be upheld no matter who is ruling. What that means is that for women, you fall whim to both sides. This book was pretty relentless with the brutality, disrespect, devaluing of women. No matter who prevails, women are going to be secondary. It's really about survival with women and there are all kinds of ways to survive. Some women use their beauty, some women were bartered using family wealth and ties, some women were skilled in other areas and made themselves indispensable to men in ways that did not include sex. But yes in this time period, rape is a fact of life. Rape by your countrymen and rape by the invaders. Worst of all, the men don't view it as rape, they view women as their right. Like its an honor to be wanted by them. Sigh. I don't want to get into an analysis of this book. It was historical fiction that was based in real world historical accounts and the diminution of women was a basic part of life. In this novel, the women are fighting for a little dignity in a world that affords them little. To be honest, this felt ubiquitous. Like this is what happens in war no matter the country. A very difficult but realistic treatise. Trigger warnings: Rape rape rape, humiliation, brutality, violence, torture, child abuse, child rape, psychological torture, emotional abuse, forced submission, physical abuse, body horror, murder Well written, poetic language, well defined characters, very difficult subject matter.

4 Stars

Listened to the audiobook. Robin Miles as usual was great!!

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

The real emperor of this country is on his farm tilling the tiny plot of land next to hers. He has never worn a crown and lives alone and has no enemies. He is a quiet man who once led a nation against a steel beast, and she was his most trusted soldier: the proud guard of the Shadow King. Tell them Hirut. There is no time but now. She can hear the dead growing louder: we must be heard. We must be remembered. We must be known. We will not rest until we have been mourned. She opens the box.

The Shadow King opens in 1974, with a woman sitting in a train station in Addis Ababa, waiting to return a box of photographs and newspaper clippings to a man who left them in her care thirty years before. Opening that box as she waits, the woman will be flooded with memories from the years of Italy’s second invasion and occupation of Ethiopia (1935-41); a forgotten time during which she and other Ethiopian women stood as warriors alongside the men who desperately attempted to fight off Mussolini’s invading army. This book is brutal: the violence of war, of slavery, of rape and torture and lynchings. It’s an examination of otherness (between races, between clans, between the sexes), and in language that can become exasperatingly flowery at times, author Maaza Mengiste nonetheless completely captured my mind and heart with this; I recognised that the writing was overwrought but the details affected me deeply. I can’t give fewer than four stars.

A memory: her father taps her chest the first day he lets her touch the rifle. This is life, he says. Then he settles his palm on the gun, This is death. Never underestimate either.

I see a lot of reviews referring to the main character, Hirut, as a servant or a maid, but I think it’s vital to recognise that she was a slave; the orphaned daughter of a noble Ethiopian family’s indentured servant, when Hirut approached Kidane and Aster for shelter, she became their property. As I googled the situation, I learned that slavery had been entrenched in Ethiopian society for centuries, so when the invading Italians promised emancipation to anyone who fought alongside them, it’s no wonder that so many joined the ascaro; signing on with the Italians in a fight for freedom against their former overlords. The heart of The Shadow King seems to be about otherness and divided loyalties: African against African; slaves ambivalent about fighting alongside their “masters”; the League of Nations refusing to intervene against Mussolini on Ethiopia’s behalf; the ethnicity of a non-observant Italian Jew brought into question; the expulsion of foreigners during Ethiopia’s 1974 overthrow of the Emperor Haile Selassie; women insisting on the right to fight for their homeland, resisting the orders to simply haul wood and cook meals and bandage the wounded men. People want to be forgiven for simply obeying orders; for adhering to custom; for being who they were raised to be, and Mengiste paints a picture of a fraught and complicated history.

There is, perhaps, too much overt presentation of root causes: a slave is brutally whipped, and in the next chapter, we see how the woman who had held that whip had been brutalised on her wedding night. In a later scene, we see how the husband on that wedding night had been raised to the act by his father; how every Ethiopian (slave or free) had been raised to resist invasive forces by a generation that had successfully repelled the first Italian invasion; how Emperor Haile Selassie himself had been raised to maintain Ethiopia’s independence. Every soldier, slave, and spy has a back story to explain their actions, and I’m still thinking on to what extent that means we are to forgive those actions.

In the author blurb for Mengiste, it states that, “Both her fiction and nonfiction examine the individual lives at stake during migration, war, and exile, and consider the intersections of photography and violence.” That’s exactly what The Shadow King is about, and photography figures very prominently. As Hirut goes through the box of pictures while she sits in the train station — photos that a cruel Italian Colonel insisted on as a record of his deeds — these proofs of the anticipation of violence are more affecting than pictures of violence in action could possibly be:

An Album of the Dead

Twins, bound back to back. A young man caught mid-movement, features a blur except for that open mouth. A boy, lanky and broad shouldered, hands clasped together to beg. An old woman, immobile, defiant, chin up, eyes blazing. A man, face beaten beyond recognition, a series of swollen, broken features. A couple, wife clinging to husband, face buried in his shoulder, his ripped shirt exposing a long, angry cut. Two young men, wild curls thick against their necks, gripping hands, face-to-face, eyes only for each other. A young man, rigid as a soldier, a bloom of dark curls framing a furious and handsome face. A young man, bookish, eyeglasses, trembling, shaking head forcing a sweep of blurry features. A young man, hands bound behind his back, shoulders protruding painfully, a tender neck jutting forward, lips pursed to spit. A girl. A young woman. A nun. Two slack-mouthed beggars, Three deacons, steady eyes. Another girl. A young man, his brother, his father, identical faces, reshaped by blows, equally swollen. A girl buckling from fear, the top of her head, the face twisted in anguish and confusion. A girl, a woman, a young man, an elderly man, a man and his wife, a family of three, a defiant old man, a brother and sister refusing to let go of each other, a bent-backed woman, a tall, lithe boy. A blind man, opaque eyes. Twins again, bound back to back.

Signature: Ettore Navarr, soldato e fotografo
Signature: Colonello Carlo Fucelli, Ricordi d’Africa

Again, I will recognise that Mengiste’s writing style (a little florid, a few cutesy techniques [a chorus, “interludes” from Haile Selassie’s POV], overt connections) may not be to everyone’s tastes, but I was both enlightened by what I learned of Ethiopia’s history in this novel and emotionally affected by the characters. A really fine read (But worthy of a Booker? Maybe not?)

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Shadow King is an exquisitely lyrical fact meets fiction historical epic set at the beginning of World War II. It charts Italian fascist Benito Mussolini’s imperialist dream as he invaded Ethiopia on October 3, 1935, with the intention of making it an Italian colony. This act of aggression shook the country to its core and forced Emperor Haile Selassie into exile. Mussolini knew that Ethiopia had little to no chance of winning against the superior weapons and vast numbers of highly trained soldiers they had at their fingertips yet this didn't make it any less bloody, violent and downright brutal. The story then covers the Ethiopian resistance through the eyes of a cast of brave women who wished to fight for their country rather than being relegated to simply caring for the injured and burying the dead. Hirut is an unforgettable character who pushes for women to do more. Unfortunately, she is later captured by the Italians and kept as a prisoner of war by cruel and cold-blooded soldiers.

There is so much happening throughout the book that you definitely need your wits about you if you pick it up; you are rewarded with a powerful, fierce, feminist tale showing the resilience of the human spirit and the human ability to get up to fight time and time again despite dire circumstances and great adversity. Mengiste is a master storyteller and has crafted a complex, convoluted story allowing you to slowly and satisfyingly peel back the multiple layers and get to the meat of it all. It's intricate and wholly original with a cast of unforgettable characters and will appeal to those seeking something a little different or obscure as well as those who enjoy reading about this period in history. This is a fascinating novel covering a lesser-known part of WWII and it certainly made for compelling reading. I truly hope it gets the attention it deserves as it seems like a labour of love for Ms Mengiste; I can't even imagine the amount of research that went into creating the narrative but it seems extensive. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Canongate for an ARC.

[Meike]

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
DNF @25 %
The topic - the Second Italo-Ethiopian War - is certainly interesting, but I just can't bring myself to care about this novel, so I'll do what I rarely resort to: I'll abandon this text. Life is short, my TBR is long.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5.

The Shadow King promises to tell the story of Ethiopia's forgotten women soldiers, doubly overlooked for their origin and their gender, who bravely fought alongside men against the Italian occupation of Ethopia during fascism. That struck me as an enormously fascinating premise : despite having lived in Italy and despite having read a great deal about fascism and WW2 from a number of perspectives, I know shockingly little about Italy's colonial war of oppression in Africa and even less about local resistance movements. And telling the forgotten stories of women is one of my favorite uses for historical fiction, filling in the gaps that official histories don't tell us.

My first problem with the novel is that it ends up being no such thing. It starts quite promisingly, in a household shaded with different power dynamics that includes Hirut, a beautiful young mistreated servant girl who is established early as our protagonist, the Cook, an older unnamed woman of unusual strength and powers with a tragic backstory of enslavement and abuse, and Aster, their aristocratic mistress who turns out both to be fiercely powerful and to have her own story of abuse.

But these fascinating women soon turn into sideshows in what purports to be their own story, as Mengiste bogs down the story with asides detailing the inner life of Emperor Haile Selassie (including some very long imaginary conversations between him, his dead daughter and Aida's father (from Verdi's Aida), and even longer passages focusing on the novel's other quasi-protagonist, Ettore, an Italian Jew who is "just following orders" from the Italian army even as his family faces extinction in Europe, and the villain, Colonel Fucelli, a sort of Kurtz-like figure drunk on cruelty and power. We get far more insight into Ettore's family and backstory and into Fucelli's inner workings than we do into any of the female characters. So not very much a woman's story after all. And frankly, Ettore and Fucelli just aren't as fresh or as interesting as the women characters we begin with. Some of it, like Ettore's distant relationship with his stern father, a refugee from Russian pogroms with a secret past, was given an awful lot of ink, but just seemed inconclusive and needlessly distracting from what starts out so promising.

Second, the book is just ridiculously overwritten. Mengiste tells us (relentlessly) what the light is doing (peeping through clouds, cutting across a valley, slicing across someone's face) in nearly every scene. Frequently two contradictory pairs of words are used to describe something, this device used so much it starts to feel like a tic (e.g., "it is both absurd and luxurious. A shock and a relief"; "what stands here is both flesh and shadow, bone and silhouette.") Many pivotal scenes are described so minutely and yet so allusively that I often wasn't entirely sure what had transpired.

The narration of the audio book was lively and the narrator game, but the 16 hours dragged and dragged. Not for me, although I understand that I am in the minority here.

[Come Musica · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Non c’è via d’uscita se non attraverso, le diciamo.
Non c’è via di fuga se non da dentro.”
Questo ritornello (a mo' di mantra) accompagna tutta la lettura e ogni volta che l'ho incontrato è come se mi avesse fornito nuove chiavi di lettura, ma non solo del libro, della mia vita in genere.

Questo libro ha i profumi, i colori e la forza delle donne etiopi.
Maaza Mengisti dà voce a quelle donne che si sono ribellate all'oppressore, dove gli oppressori furono gli italiani che, dal 1935 al 1936, compirono la campagna di Etiopia, voluta da Mussolini.

In ogni pagina vibra la forza di Aster e di Hirut che resistono e non piegano il capo a una condizione di schiavitù.
La guerra etiope non fu una guerra solo maschile.
Con le unghie e con i denti, le donne etiopi difesero la loro terra.
“La nostra terra ci proteggerà, ha ripetuto piú volte, ogni pietra si porrà al nostro servizio, ogni fiume scorrerà verso di noi. Continuate a camminare, sorelle, con la testa alta e la schiena dritta. Muovetevi come fecero le nostre madri quando, anche loro, andarono in guerra.”

E le donne in questo romanzo fanno sentire la loro voce (questo è infatti un romanzo corale) e sono loro il Re Ombra:
“E nell’ampio fascio di luce che entra dalle finestre della stazione, Hirut tira fuori la lettera e la passa a Ettore mentre comincia a dire:
Getey, Fasil, Aster, Nardos, Zenebwork, Siti, Tesfaye, Dawit, Beniam, Tariku, Girum, Amha, Bekafa, Bisrat, Desta, Befekadu, Saleh, Ililta, Meaza, Lakew, Ahmed, Eskinder, Biruk, Genet, Gabriel, Matteos, Leul, Hoda, Birtukan, Mulumabet, Estifanos, Hewan, Lukas, Habte, Mimi, Kiros, Mohamed, Wongel, Atnaf, Jembere, Imru, Senait, Yosef, Mahlet, Alem, Girma, Gelila, Birtukan, Freiwot, Tiruneh, Marta, Harya, Hayalnesh, Mengiste, Zinash, Petros, Anketse, Sergut, Mikael, Mogus, Teodros, Checole, Kidane, Lidia, Fifi e Ferres, e la cuoca, la cuoca, la cuoca, e mentre dice i loro nomi sente che le si stanno radunando intorno e la incalzano: Diglielo, Hirut, eravamo noi il Re Ombra. Fummo noi quelli che entrarono in un paese distrutto da un flagello invasore riaccendendo la speranza del popolo etiope.”

Bello anche il racconto attraverso le foto: “Che cosa può sapere se non quel che vede mentre fissa quella giovane donna che stringe seta annodata come se fosse nata per drappeggiarvisi: una bellezza incomprensibile e feroce, forte abbastanza per penetrare nelle ossa e insediarsi nel cuore e spezzarlo per sempre.”


Bello, bello, bello!

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Booker Prize Longlist 2020. Mengiste introduces us to two fierce women warriors that fought against the invading Italian troops in Ethiopia during WWII. We meet the two women early in this lyrically-written tale when they argue over a necklace that Kidane gave as a wedding gift to Aster. Hirut has been relegated to be a servant in Kidane’s household when her parents died. Hirut found the necklace and buried it in preparation of running away. Both of these women demonstrate their warrior natures in this argument.

Kidane is an officer in the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie’s army, but his troops are vastly outgunned by the ruthless Italians. But Aster refuses to wait at home for her husband’s return. She dons his tunic, jodhpurs and cape and sets off to join the war, taking Hirut with her. [Mengiste discovered that her own great-grandmother was one of the women who joined the war effort.] Selassie escapes the country to live in safety in Bath for much of the war, leaving the Ethiopian army without an inspirational leader. Enter the Shadow King, a doppelganger for the emperor that Kidane hails as the returned Selassie. It is just what the Ethiopians need.

Along with the Aster and Hirut’s stories, is the tale of the Venetian soldier, Ettore. He is a photographer, and also Jewish. He and his parents are subject to the increasing antisemitism at home. For the Italians, their vision of recapturing the great Roman empire must be captured on film. Hence, the Italian commander needs Ettore.

Recommend this well-written account of the Italian-Ethiopian conflict where gender lines had to be crossed in order for the Ethiopians to succeed.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

“War has no woman's face”, already noted Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich. Maaza Mengistu presents her own version of this, based on the history of her homeland Ethiopia, but in a very different way. While Alexievich dryly registered the testimonies of dozens of women and only intervened in the composition and style, Mengiste offers an almost completely fictionalized story, in a truly epic style. As others have already written (my GR-friend Orsidomondo for instance), you kind of find yourself in a Verdian opera, so bombastic and 19th centurish the style of Mengiste is, especially in the battle scenes between the Italian invasion army and the Ethiopian rebels. I also regularly had to think of the Iliad, only the intervening gods are missing. That's not a farfetched reference: Mengiste regularly also brings in a chorus to support the story and comment on it from a broader context. That epical-lyrical character, with an ancient Greek flavour, is both repulsive and attractive.

It is clear that Mengiste is not only focussing on her people's heroic resistance to the brutal Italian occupation after 1935 (for which, to my knowledge, Italy was never punished). This is also apparent from the fact that she is very selective about historical facts (and does not mention, for example, the Eritrean complicity in the Italian adventure, probably because that does not suit the current rulers in Ethiopia). According to the long closing sentence, her focus was mainly on the position of women in the Ethiopian resistance. Through the duo Hirut-Aster she illustrates how remarkable women also took up arms and ventured into battle. I have not been able to verify her claim that this is based on historical facts. With both Hirut and Aster she also underlines the dubious nature of the female position: despite their merits, both are clearly subdued by the formidable resistance leader Kidane, also in a sexual way; this Kidane therefore takes on a very ambiguous character. Personally, I had some issues with the character drawing of both women: Mengiste tries to give them some psychological layering but does not quite succeed in that. Hirut in particular remains a bit stuck in a quagmire of conflicting feelings.

Strangely enough, the Italian protagonists, the vicious colonel Fucelli (a kind of Kurtz) and the terrified soldier-photographer Ettore Navarra, seem to come out much better, as characters I mean. Through the jew Navarra, Mengiste also makes a link with the holocaust, and here she clearly misuses historical facts (in 1935 jews weren’t sent to extermination camps yet, and certainly in Italy there wasn’t a full-blown antisemitic policy yet). It is also significant that she gives this book the title of The Shadow King, whilst the story on the double of emperor Haile Selassie is just an entertaining and minor side-intrigue. This clearly undermines her gender focus.

In short, there are definitely some snags to this novel. But if you like a compelling story, if you are sensitive to gender aspects, and not afraid of bombastic prose, you will certainly enjoy this novel. I know I did.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the reasons I enjoy reading great historical fiction is that it illuminates periods of the past that I was totally unaware of. Most of my understanding of the events surrounding WWII are centred around an American and English perspective. So prior to Mengiste's “The Shadow King” I had no knowledge of Mussolini's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, one of the last sovereign African countries at that time. As Mengiste has explained in interviews, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War is well documented but there are few written historical accounts of Ethiopian women's active involvement in defending the country through these battles. This novel provides a different framing of this period by insisting on the prominence and importance of these women. The author introduces us to this era by focusing on the story of Hirut, an orphaned girl who becomes a maid to Kidane who is an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie's army and his strong-willed wife Aster. As the invasion begins the balance of their lives is totally upended and their relationships alter in accordance with the joint will to fight to maintain Ethiopia's independence. The result is a dramatic story filled with bloody battles and the emotional journeys of individuals whose lives are fundamentally changed by these larger events.

The difficulty with some historical novels is that they are so steeped in a narrative of the past it's a challenge to enter as a reader if you aren't equipped with a knowledge about it. This was definitely why I found it hard to finish reading “Wolf Hall” on the first go and why it took supplementary reading for me to better understand the events and drama being portrayed. The same was true for Mengiste's novel. Frequently throughout the story I found myself entrenched in scenes of conflict I struggled to understand so it was difficult to emotionally invest in the outcome. I fully accept this is a problem of my own ignorance about the series of historical events being portrayed. Like with Mantel's fiction, I think the payoff gained from really concentrating and reading additional material is worth it because “The Shadow King” is undoubtably an impressive work of fiction. I'm equally sure that reading this novel a second time will yield a lot more pleasure because I'd be able to focus more on the development of the characters, the links between them and the symbolic resonance of the story more than working so hard to follow what was actually happening. However, this means that at the moment this is a novel I admired more than really enjoyed.

Read my full review of The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste on LonesomeReader

[John Banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Booker 2020 Shortlisted

This is a powerful and fine work of literature. It offers a thoughtful and moving account of the colonial war in the 1930s between Italy and Ethiopia by focusing on the perspectives and experiences of proud Ethiopian women warriors who join the men and even surpass them with their resilience to take the fight to the invaders. A strength of this book for me was a very considered and nuanced reflection on the relationships among colonised and coloniser, especially through the character of Ettore, a young Italian man and photographer in the army.

The style and tone of the book is interesting. While not magical realist and very historically grounded in the realities of the characters' situation, it has a lyrical aspiration towards flight into myth and legend, as if in doing so it will honor and memoralise their terrible sacrifices. Some of the passages have an almost biblical cadence. Others (headed chorus) provide a collective conscience that is grounded in Greek literature.

There are also sections headed "Photo", providing descriptions of and commentaries on photographic images. These are very well done, working to support and even critically comment on the work of Ettore as he captures images (many of them brutally terrible) at the order of his ruthless commander, Colonel Fucelli. These sections, and Ettore perhaps, are seeking through the forms of art, to give meaning and value to these lives that are brutalised and often ended in the midst of the carnage of war. Trying to assert even a flicker of meaning that can transcend these terrible circumstances. For example, the book opens in 1974 (nearly 40 years after the war) with Hirut returning to Adis Ababa with a box of letters and photos: "Inside the box are the many dead that insist on resurrection". The first sentence of the novel sets up this theme: "SHE DOES NOT WANT TO REMEMBER BUT SHE IS HERE AND MEMORY IS gathering bones". There is an effort by many of the characters (especially the central women) to assert this meaning and identity in the face of war, including the sexual and misogynistic violence inflicted by Ethiopian men whom they fight alongside. This spirit of defiant endurance in the Ethiopian women characters, Hirut and Aster, is conveyed with a dignified strength that I will take with me from this read.

I won't comment on the narrative and metaphorical device of the Shadow King as it relates to emperor Haile Selassie and would be something of a spoiler but by the end of the novel far transcends that.

Mengiste's The Shadow King very much deserves its place on the Booker shortlist.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

A photograph functions as proof that a moment in time has happened. I am making this statement because Maaza Mengiste’s novel utilises the concept of photographs extensively. I’ll get to that later.

The book open in 1974, Ethiopia and Hirute has to deliver a box containing letters and photographs. She suddenly drifts off to 1935 where a number of events occurred, which are connected to the box’s contents. Namely Italy’s second invasion of Ethiopia and Emperor Haile Selassie’s exile.

This is no ordinary historical novel as Mengiste weaves in a number of themes and subplots. Hirut herself, during this time, is under the care of her parent’s (now deceased) close friend Kidane and his wife Aster. At first Hirut and Aster clash but then, through necessity they both join the Ethiopian army, which did have a women’s faction and reconcile.

At the same time there is a plan to replace the exiled king with another person, a case where a subplot turns into a main plot and forms the crux of the story (hence also the title) obviously the term Shadow King can refer to other characters in the book but I don’t want to give too much away.

To add some more to the book, there’s another subplot featuring an Italian photographer/soldier called Ettore, who takes pictures of the war and these photos are described in the novel. Later on Ettore’s life becomes connected with Hirut’s and his work links the 1935 and 1974 sections.

Themes of relationships feature, each character has their own dynamic. Hiut/Aster violent. Hirut/Kidane brotherly (although this takes a turn for the worse later on) Ettore and his father etc. The book also serves as a character study as nearly all protagonists are given a backstory. The book also is about empowerment. Both Aster and Hirut overcome their abuse by becoming warriors in both a physical and metaphorical sense and in the process being the standouts of a male orientated army.

There is a lot of great things to say about The Shadow King ; there’s depth, it is about a period of history that’s not really talked about in fiction and the characters are rich.

Saying that I did not like the writing style. I found it dull bordering on the lifeless. At times it was a slog, the only sections I genuinely were the ones dedicated to Ettore’s photos of the war. For me, The Shadow King falls into the the ‘admire but not like’ category.

[Kiran Dellimore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste. On the one hand I thoroughly enjoyed the exquisite lyrical prose of Mengiste's writing, which roped me into the story almost from the very beginning. She is able to express seemingly indescribable feelings and emotions with rare finesse and delicacy. For example, her description of Aster's feelings as a young woman losing her virginity on her wedding night was gripping - capturing her fear and stubborn determination to flee. Equally captivating was her account of the protagonist, Hirut's grit and stoic resistance when she was a prisoner subjected to crude objectification by her Italian captors. On the other hand I found some aspects of the narrative jarring and at times superfluous, which slightly diminished my enthusiasm to read further. In particular, the repeated graphic rape scenes, in which Hirut is repeatedly violated by her married, master turned Ethiopian freedom fighting general, disturbing and unnecessary to the narrative. From my perspective a single account of such an incident would have sufficed. In a similar vein, the end of the story came across somewhat belabored and unrealistic. I felt as if I had to push myself to finish The Shadow King since the narrative seemed to drag on unnaturally longer than it needed to. And the ending, was anticlimactic and too fantastic to satiate me after making it so far. I had expected to be rewarded with more of Mengiste's sublime prose and beautiful imagination. Overall, I enjoyed The Shadow King and would recommend it to others without reservation, especially if you are looking to discover contemporary African writers.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good story, especially when it’s wrapped inside an historical novel. Novelists, please transport me to another place, another time so that I can momentarily forget the United States of 2019. Fortunately, the past two years have brought several excellent historical novels. For me, the very best among them are Edward Carey’s Little, Daniel Mason’s The Winter Soldier, Stella Tillyard’s The Great Level, and Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys; Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King belongs on this idiosyncratic shortlist.

Mengiste tells an absorbing story of Mussolini’s attempt to refashion the Roman Empire by invading Ethiopia. The Shadow King revolves around two central characters. Most central is Hirut — ”daughter of Getey and Fasil, born on a blessed day of harvest” — a young servant woman and later heroic guard to the revered Shadow King. And next is Ettore Navarra — AKA “Foto”, son of Leonardo Navarra, AKA Leonid Novsky, born Lev Naiman, and Gabriella, ”proud Italian, eternal atheist, firm believer in facts” — a young Italian soldier tasked as a war photographer by the invading army and by his father to ”bear witness to what is happening. Make living your act of defiance. Record it all. Do it relentlessly, with. . . stubbornness and precision. . .” Mengiste also fleshes out other crucial characters: Dejazmach Kidane, the head of the house to which Hirut is indentured; Aster, Kadane’s wife; the unnamed cook, who I think of as THE COOK; Colonello Carlo Fucelli, the ”famed butcher of Benghazi”; and FIfi, born Faven from Gondar, a renowned beauty, prostitute, and Fucelli’s lover. The plethora of more minor characters are sometimes barely sketched, occasionally confusing this reader.

Mengiste’s portrays Hirut, Ettore, Kidane, and Aster with texture and nuance. Ethiopian heroes act abysmally; Italian anti-heroes act even worse. Both Ethiopian heroes and Italian anti-heroes, commit acts of kindness: the Colonel safeguards Ettore from Rome’s decree that Jewish soldiers must be returned to Italy for imprisonment. Italian anti-heroes, Mussolini’s invaders — including the sometimes pitiable Foto — are not forgiven. Ethiopian heroes are granted acceptance rather than redemption. To Mengiste’s great credit and to The Shadow King’s great benefit, no cardboard cut-out heroes here.

4.5 stars