The Shadow King
by Maaza Mengiste
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Pub Date 1 Oct 2020 | Archive Date 3 Sep 2020
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Description
With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid. Her new employer, Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade.
Hirut 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. But how could she have predicted her own personal war, still to come, as a prisoner of one of Italy’s most vicious officers?
The Shadow King is a gorgeously crafted and unputdownable exploration of female power, and what it means to be a woman at war.
Advance Praise
'The Shadow King is a beautiful and devastating work; of women holding together a world ripping itself apart. They will slip into your dreams and overtake your memories'
MARLON JAMES
'Unforgettable. I suspect I won’t read anything more moving this year'
The Times, Book of the Month
'Lyrical, remarkable . . . Breathtakingly skillful . . . The reader feels . . . In the steady hands of a master . . . Hirut [is] as indelible and compelling a hero as any I've read in years'
New York Times
'With epic sweep and dignity, Mengiste has lifted this struggle into legend, along with the women who fought in it. Beautiful, horrifying, elegant and haunted, The Shadow King is a modern classic'
ANDREW SEAN GREER, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of LESS
'The Shadow King is incredible. I’ve read nothing like it before. There is war, love, betrayal, history and the present day wrapped in the hearts and minds of complex characters. Maaza Mengiste rises as Toni Morrison rests. The baton has been passed and taken deftly'
LEMN SISSAY
'Set during Italy’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, this absorbing novel spotlights the African women who went to war . . . [Mengiste's] achievement in The Shadow King is to bring to life those women, and to depict them as dynamic entities, their capabilities, limitations and beliefs evolving under duress in as fully complex a way as those of their male counterparts'
Guardian
'A brilliant novel, lyrically lifting history towards myth. It’s also compulsively readable. I devoured it in two days'
SALMAN RUSHDIE
'A must-read . . . The Shadow King is a masterpiece . . . Brilliant . . . [Mengiste] is simply an outstanding writer, with an uncanny ability with words, metaphor, history and truth . . . I simply cannot recommend this remarkable book highly enough to anyone who looks for the best writing to tell compelling stories'
Washington Post
'Urgent and propulsive but also lyrical and meditative . . . An inspiring, harrowing portrait of an overlooked aspect of an overlooked conflict'
Metro
'Wonderful . . . The novel is an intimate portrait of human beings going about their daily lives with tensions and hardships, memories and love, which broadens out into an epic war narrative . . . The Shadow King is ambitious but effortless to read. For all the harrowing scenes, it feels hopeful and lyrical'
i
'The new Toni Morrison? Maaza Mengiste certainly seems worthy of the comparison . . . Epic in scale, intimate in detail; this is one story that's sure to stay with you'
Sunday Telegraph
'One of the most affecting accounts of the terror of war I have ever read, all the more so for the being cloaked in the language of beauty, such that the words and their meaning burn through the senses. The Shadow King is a work born of rage, a rage made magnificent for its compassion and the story it tells us – that in war there are no winners'
AMINATTA FORNA, author of HAPPINESS
'The Shadow King is not a story about helpless victims of colonial conquest. Against the odds, it is written in a key of pride and exaltation, and its characters have the outsize form of national heroes . . . Mengiste ambitiously stretches her canvas to include colliding perspectives'
Wall Street Journal
'If Maaza Mengiste’s novel The Shadow King had been published in the UK earlier in the year it would have been on everyone’s book of the year list . . . Mengiste rewrites the story of all wars as she highlights the roles women played in this war. Here a father’s special gift to his daughter is a gun that undergoes many shifts in meaning and value, taking the plot in unexpected directions . . . Mengiste shows how sometimes surviving as a woman requires the invention of new weapons'
Time Literary Supplement
'Epic, devastating, powerful . . . About women in war, about female power and rage and the many abuses of war, and what it means to bear witness to great crimes. The writing is stunning'
ELIZABETH MACNEAL
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781838851170 |
| PRICE | US$16.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 448 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Sarah A, Reviewer
You know that thing where you read a book so eye-opening and incredible you don’t even know where to start in talking about it because you just know you’ll never do it justice? I got that with The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste.
The novel is set primarily during Mussolini’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia (Hands up, this is a part of history that I knew very little about before beginning reading) and focuses on the women soldiers who have been largely omitted from historical records. It begins with Hirut, who has been recently orphaned, and her new life as a maid for Kidane and his wife, Aster. From there the book opens up to how they all, this household, and the others from local villages who gathered to fight, prepare for the incoming Italian invasion and how their lives are crushed and changed during and after it.
I really enjoyed the writing here, it had an almost cinematic quality in the details and descriptions. Mengiste hasn’t just focused on what’s happening to the characters in their immediate environment, we’re getting the full birds-eye macro view down to the last bullet or bandage. It makes for an overwhelming read at times, there is just so much to absorb, but add that to the lyrical tone of the words and it’s truly a special book.
It was fascinating to see this very female side of the war depicted. Often we only hear the male side of war, with occasional glimpses of the experiences of women. It makes for a powerful and emotional read. Hirut’s voice will hurt at times, make you feel pride at others, but always keep you engaged. I’m so grateful to have read this book, and I recommend it to all.
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