A gun that has tasted blood wants more...

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.

14 people found this helpful

A story that needs to be heard by more people

No doubt most people are aware of the Holocaust of Jews under the Nazis but probably few people outside Ethiopia are aware of the genocide of Ethiopian people by the Italian military, following their invasion of the country in 1935. Even fewer people are probably aware of the involvement of women in the fighting against the Italians during those years. This book brilliantly brings this story to the light; it is beautifully read by Robin Miles and Maaza Mengiste's prose is majesterial, evoking the fear, excitement, anger and eventual triumph of the brave people who fought those invaders. It is also the story of a young woman, abused not just by the Italians but by the misogynies of her patriarchal cultures, And the book does not take a Manichean perspective, by portraying all Ethiopians as brave and honourable and all Italians as cowardly and fascistic. A wonderful book that should have won the booker prize and should be read by everyone who thinks colonialism was an great project.

6 people found this helpful

So interesting and absorbing

I had to read it twice.It taught me so much and with so much feeling. One of the best books I have read in nearly 60 years

6 people found this helpful

Takes ages to get going, never quite settled into gear

Good audio and performance of various accents, occasionally a bit ott. The writing though, feels like an overly detailed screenplay in that it describes every visual element, and often uses good rich visual metaphor, but is very often over-egged and very hard to sustain an interest sentence to sentence; this is whether it’s an internal character monologue or a scene with some dramatic action being played out. Might’ve been helped by breaking it up into chapters each with a vaguely clear purpose... instead the sense of it being a stream of consciousness, is what’s so distracting and so confusing as a stylistic choice. Since it’s told from multiple perspectives and even locations, why not break it up into distinct sections for each, so the reader has a bit more breathing space and sense of dramatic tension/release/flow? The sections labelled “Chorus” and similar, feel like an attempt to do something like that but end up adding to the confusion.

I was glad I stuck with it because by the middle of Book Three it’s really quite a rewarding read. Also enjoyed the linking of Aida, nice touch.

4 people found this helpful

Fascinating

There’s too much I’d like to say about this book to fit into an Audible review. This author is extraordinary. A literary work of art, The Shadow King collages Ethiopian and Italian cultures, summoning the choral language of Greek war epics but redressing them with female soldier protagonists, for the history of the many Ethiopian women who fought in battles has never been formally recorded nor written about.
Not a fast-paced story, the sense of the endurance of war, of anticipation of conflict, of captivity, of a slowly increasing threat to freedom — build effectively as the plots progress.
It is a challenging read for a narrator, to keep engaging the listener and embody the many voices of characters from different cultures. I did find at times I couldn’t tell who was speaking, as the accents and voices weren’t always discernible — Italian, Ethiopian, male, female — and sometimes the intonation was unnatural/distracting, but probably because of my own dialect. 😆
Ultimately a memorable ‘read’.

4 people found this helpful

A story of historical female courage

Similar to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Half Of A Yellow Sun," I started reading "The Shadow King" completely naive of what it would be about. The front cover grabbed my attention with its bright colours and enigmatic title (something you only really understand the meaning of 3 quarters the way through the book/audiobook.

Though it tells the story through multiple perspectives, it is clear that Hirut is our main character. Her growth as a woman - and a soldier - was visceral at times, but a joy to read. "The Shadow King" perfectly demonstrates the social divides between men and women, with men using physical strength and dominance over women during war, and women fighting back from that. I refuse to give any spoilers, but while Robin Miles is an okay narrator, the book is great.

2 people found this helpful

It is an achievement....

to listen this book to the end. I selected this novel as it was about a time in our recent history that is not often spoken of or taught in England and the book has been is on the Man Booker Shortlist and I always try to read as many of the books nominated as possible. My overwhelming feeling during reading was it may not be the best book to convert to audio and if so then needed to be edited more closely.
The story doesn’t get going until the second third but until you get to that stage there is a mishmash of characters, a Chorus, real and fictional figures to try and juggle on top of a vocabulary that is unfamiliar. A PDF annexe to accompany the book as other authors have provided would have helped keep track of it all. I hate leaving a negative review of what is clearly a very important and personal story which should be told, but it certainly made the listener/ reader work to get there. That said given the scope and scale it may just was the Booker Prize judges are looking for.

2 people found this helpful

Female centred depiction of war

A strong narrative depicting the roles Ethiopian women played in the fight to overthrow Italy.

1 person found this helpful

Outstanding book

I was gripped from the beginning to the end. Somehow Maaza Mengiste manages to write an epic story in an intimate way. To me this book is of the quality of the Odyssey and War and Peace, yet it was so fresh and alive. Maaza Mengiste touched my soul with this story.
Robin Miles was a truly outstanding narrator.
Both writer and narrator are incredibly gifted.

An operatic sweep of history

The Shadow King is an operatic sweep of history. The backdrop to the central story is the history of Ethiopia under the rule of Haile Selassie I and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s. At its most powerful is the story of the women who fought in the Ethiopian armies to help defeat the Italian invaders and who were later forgotten and written out of these histories because they were women. Hirut and Aster take centre stage in a war waged by men and about men. They guard the Shadow King, the unauthorised standing for the emperor in exile - a ruse to build moral and bolster resistance. It’s an homage the real shadow kings.

We follow these womens life stories which were largely dictated by men and whose destinies were tied up in the lives, identities and histories of men. Men like Kidane, Fucelli and Ettore.

The author bravely juxtaposes the plight of the Jews in Europe under Hitler/Mussolini with that of the plight of the Africans under European colonisation through the character of Ettore, an Italian solider and photographer of the horrors of the Italian invasion. He is both enemy and exile in Ethiopia - hated by the Ethiopians as a soldate in the Italian army and now hated by Mussolini as an Italian Jew. His status mirrors that of the lives and positions of natal Africans living in their own countries under European invasion - enemies and exiles within their own countries and so are the Europeans. Everyone inhabiting those roles depending on the perspectives.

Mengiste shows that what Hitler was doing to Jews in Europe, Europe was doing to worse to the rest of the world in its quest for empire.

This is a story of many layers. A masterpiece written with such lyricism and skilfulness. A book that is representative of the talented writers from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, the former European colonies who are telling their stories from their own perspectives with greater depths and integrity than the European writers who felt they had the authority to tell stories about people they couldn’t see as multi-dimensional and fully human.

Highly recommended.