Maaza Mengiste‘s second novel The Shadow King, published by Norton, will be out on September 24, 2019.
Maaza Mengiste is a novelist and essayist whose debut novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, was selected by the Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African books and named one of the best books of 2010 by Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, and other publications. Her work can be found in The New Yorker, New York Review of Books, Granta, the Guardian, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and BBC, among other places. She was a writer on the documentary projects, Girl Rising and The Invisible City; Kakuma.
The second novel from the Ethiopian has the following blurb;
In 1935, orphaned servant Hirut struggles to adapt to her new household as Ethiopia faces Mussolini’s looming invasion. As the battles begin in earnest, Hirut and other women must care for the wounded. But when Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile and Ethiopia is about to lose hope, Hirut helps to disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor to keep the fight alive. She becomes his guard, inspiring women to join the war against fascism. In this extraordinary, beautifully told epic, Hirut overcomes rape, violence, and imprisonment, finding the strength to fight for her country’s freedom and her own.
Maaza Mengiste breathes life into complicated characters on both sides of the battle line, shaping a searing story of ordinary women and the advanced army they courageously opposed. Set against the first real conflict of World War II, The Shadow King is a heartrending, indelible exploration of what it means to be a woman at war.
It comes highly recommended with Salman Rushdie stating of the book, “a brilliant novel, lyrically lifting history towards myth. It’s also compulsively readable. I devoured it in two days.”
You can pre-order a copy of the book at several spaces like Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and Indie Bound.
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