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The Shadow King

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020

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The Shadow King

By: Maaza Mengiste
Narrated by: Robin Miles
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020

‘DEVASTATING’ Marlon James, ‘A MODERN CLASSIC’ Andrew Sean Greer, ‘BRILLIANT’ Salman Rushdie, ‘MAGNIFICENT’ Aminatta Forna, ‘EPIC’ Mary Morris, ‘WONDERFUL’ Laila Lalami, ‘UNFORGETTABLE’ The Times, ‘REMARKABLE’ New York Times, 'A MASTERPIECE' Washington Post

ETHIOPIA. 1935.

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 mobilise 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.

 Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Africa Italy War
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Critic reviews

"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"
"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"
"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)
"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"
"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"
"Urgent and propulsive but also lyrical and meditative . . . An inspiring, harrowing portrait of an overlooked aspect of an overlooked conflict"
"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"
"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"
All stars
Most relevant
Could not get connected with the characters, found it hard to care what happened to them.

Difficult to follow

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A difficult listen on many levels but we should never forget our shameful histories.
I cried more than once
Thank you Maaza for bearing a belated witness in such a brutally honest but eloquent way. Very few books have left such an impression on me. Brilliant! Thank you

Brilliant telling of a disturbing history

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An amazing story of the women soldiers who fought against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Haunting and lyrical. Every character is well developed.

Ethiopia

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the author's final words. women's importance in all wars is never truly recognized nor appreciated.

So true,

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I chose this because it looked like the most interesting story on the Booker longlist - and I wasn't disappointed. Like Kate Grenville, the author takes inspiration from some family history to tell the incredible story of female soldiers in Ethiopia. There's some cracking lines about dealing with colonialisation, a few of my favourites were: 'Make living your first act of defiance' and 'Only soil will remember who we are. Nothing but earth is strong enough to withstand the burden of memory'. Reading is about temporarily escaping the cosy rut of your own existence and seeing the world through someone else's eyes. I knew nothing about Ethiopia in the 1930s but I do now. This is also a very topical book in terms of unheard stories and perspectives.

A gun that has tasted blood wants more...

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