A gripping novel set during Mussolini’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, The Shadow King takes us back to the first real conflict of World War II, casting light on the women soldiers who were left out of the historical record.With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid in Kidane and his wife Aster’s household. Kidane, an officer in … Aster’s household. Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade. His initial kindness to Hirut shifts into a flinty cruelty when she resists his advances, and Hirut finds herself tumbling into a new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and overwhelming rage. Meanwhile, Mussolini’s technologically advanced army prepares for an easy victory. Hundreds of thousands of Italians—Jewish photographer Ettore among them—march on Ethiopia seeking adventure.
As the war begins in earnest, Hirut, Aster, and the other women long to do more than care for the wounded and bury the dead. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile and Ethiopia quickly loses hope, it is Hirut who offers a plan to maintain morale. She helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms against the Italians. But how could she have predicted her own personal war as a prisoner of one of Italy’s most vicious officers, who will force her to pose before Ettore’s camera?
What follows is a gorgeously crafted and unputdownable exploration of female power, with Hirut as the fierce, original, and brilliant voice at its heart. In incandescent, lyrical prose, Maaza Mengiste breathes life into complicated characters on both sides of the battle line, shaping a heartrending, indelible exploration of what it means to be a woman at war.
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Short listed for the Booker Prize in 2020, this is a fascinating and insightful epic about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.
It opens with Hirut, an older Ethiopian woman travelling on a bus in 1974 through a troubled Addis Ababa. She’s on her way to take a box of photos to Ettore, a man who’d once been her jailer after her capture by Mussolini’s army.
The story takes us back to just before the Italian invasion when as an orphan, Hirut is taken in as a reluctant servant to Kidane and his wife Aster. When Kidane, an officer in the army mobilises troupes to fight, strong-willed Aster galvanises all the women in the district to help and Hirut transforms from servant to fierce warrior.
The Emperor, Haile Selassie flees the country and when all hope appears lost, Hirut suggests disguising a peasant as the emperor to fool the Italians and inspire the Ethiopian army to continue the fight. Hirut is eventually captured and embroiled in her own personal war against her captors, one of which is Ettore.
It’s an incredibly written and lyrical novel on a brutal and horrific subject. Mengiste’s descriptions are poetic and I’d suggest you ignore the absence of some punctuation and enjoy the writing.
“She is close enough to see him racing across the spine of the mountain, his heels flying, that chest a swell of bony ribs and heavy air. In the ebbing night, he comes first as sound: the snap of a branch, a scrape of foot on stone. A hiss curving against the soft orange light. He is a fleeting mirage speeding over rough hills, shallow gasps stalling in thick breeze.”
The history is rich giving us insight into both sides of this little-known war of which I was totally ignorant. The author explores the bravery and sheer persistence by the Ethiopians in particular the power of their female soldiers. Mostly told from Hirut’s point of view, we are also given insight into other characters such as Ettore and Selassie who are rich and complex. The themes are numerous: trauma, survival, forced marriage, and colonisation to name some. Interestingly, Mengiste’s own great-grandmother had been a soldier and presumably provided her inspiration.
t’s a wonderfully enlightening and moving account of war fought by strong courageous women. Check it out.
4.5s. 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 against 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 war 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 a copy of this book in a giveaway.
Excellent writing, powerful characters
Not my usual fare but so glad I deviated from my usual menu! I learned something about (in)humanity along the way!