The Shadow King, Maaza Mengiste
The Shadow King, Maaza Mengiste
2 Rating(s)
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
Club: $14.99

The Shadow King

Author: Maaza Mengiste

Narrator: Robin Miles

Unabridged: 16 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 10/31/2019


Synopsis

Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, and named a best book of the year by the New York Times, NPR, Elle, Time, and more, The Shadow King is an “unforgettable epic from an immensely talented author who’s unafraid to take risks” (Michael Schaub, NPR).

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. At its heart is orphaned maid Hirut, who finds herself tumbling into a
new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and overwhelming rage. What follows is a heartrending and unputdownable exploration of what it means to be a woman at war.

About Maaza Mengiste

Maaza Mengiste was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and graduated with an M.F.A. in creative writing from New York University. A recent Pushcart Prize nominee, she was named "New Literary Idol" by New York Magazine. Her work has appeared in the Baltimore Review, Ninth Letter, and 42opus; has been translated and published into German and Romanian for Lettre International; and can be found in the anthology Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race, Place and Time. A recipient of fellowships from the Prague Summer Program, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo, she currently lives in New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Baba on June 06, 2023

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 wri......more

Goodreads review by Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer on May 10, 2021

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......more

Goodreads review by Katia on September 21, 2020

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......more

Goodreads review by Prerna on September 24, 2020

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 a......more

Goodreads review by Paul on October 01, 2020

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 w......more