I bought this book for a class on African Literature and was asked to write a review after reading it.
The Shadow King is a beautifully written novel exploring untold histories, gender and class conflicts, love, loss, and war. In the novel we see the Italian invasion of Ethiopia beginning in 1936 from the perspective of the rag-tag, undersupplied, outnumbered, Ethiopian volunteer army as they try to hold off Musilini’s approach. The main characters are Hirut - an orphaned girl who works as a servant for Kidane and Aster, a married couple who lead an Ethiopian militia. Kidane and Aster’s marriage, which we learn was arranged against Aster’s wishes, is strained by loss, jealousy, and resentment. Dispursed throughout the chapters are also snippets following Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie as he slowly watches his country fall and is forced to into exile, as well as Carlos Fucelli, the merciless general leading the Italian troops, and Ettore, a Jewish Italian photographer and soldier. The characters’ paths intertwine, creating a suspenseful, complicated, and gut-wrenchingly painful story where no one comes out the victor.
Maaza Mengiste’s writing is what truly makes this novel worth reading. Her complicated characters and vivid imagery are presented through almost poetic diction which makes the novel both emotionally difficult to read and captivating enough to make it hard to put down. Mengiste’s style can be difficult to follow, especially due to the lack of punctuation around conversations. Nothing is said overtly in quotations, which makes it difficult to follow who is speaking and what is said aloud or simply thought. This ambiguity adds to the ghostly motifs throughout the novel, with characters frequently being visited by, seeing, and speaking to the people they have lost. While it may also be difficult for readers unfamiliar with the Invasion of Ethiopia to follow the historical references and allusions, Mengiste does an excellent job of connecting the characters’ personal stories to the historical events. For those of us who are unfortunately not taught African histories in school, it is well worth some personal research into the references Mengiste makes because the historical allusions and symbolism multiply the richness of her writing tenfold.
For me, the most memorable part of the book is the complexity of the characters, especially Aster. While we may want to see Aster as a stunning, powerful, determined leader, it is impossible to ignore her flaws. At the start of the novel, Aster is the villain. She mistreats Hurit as well as the cook, ransacking the few personal belongings the servants have and even going so far as to beat Hurit with a horsewhip and leave her close to death in the stable. We learn, however, that Aster is just as trapped in her marriage as her servants are in her house. No woman in the story is safe from brutality. Out of her powerless position as a child sold into her arranged marriage, Aster emerges as the defiant leader of the women fighting for Ethiopia - including Hirut.. Aster inspires a unique feminist movement of women determined to carve a place for themselves in history as more than the cooks, nurses, and gravediggers.
All that said, The Shadow King is not an easy read. Its chapters are filled with brutal violence and loss, which Mengiste writes about in painful detail. Even in a story promising to hail the heroism of female soldiers, there are very few victories for the characters we grow to empathize with. If not under threat from the invading Italians, Hirut, Aster, and other women are emotionally and physically abused by Kidane or the other men they are fighting alongside. For Kidane, despite his violence towards his wife and Hirut, we are also made to sympathize with his dispersion to protect his county and the guilt he is riddled with after every loss. Even when following Ettore in the Italian army, things are anything but good. He observes the unrelenting brutality of the Italian commander, is riddled by guilt over his role in it, and worries about his Jewish parents back in Italy. While I would recommend this book to readers interested in history, and especially those curious about sides of history that are usually left out of textbooks, and I admire Mengiste’s writing style, I found it extremely difficult to get through.
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Reviews with images
Mengiste evokes the culture of another time
The Shadow King follows two main characters as Italy invades northern Ethiopia in 1935: a servant who becomes a warrior, and an Italian Jewish photographer. Through scenes that keep the tension high, these two eventually meet and form a connection fueled with a complex bond that the author never oversimplifies. The novel is based on real events and people, and the author respects their struggles by not filling in their words or personalities, but by recreating the forces that shaped their world.
Top reviews from other countries
SmokedMeat1
Intriguing, woke, challenging historically charged.
Reviewed in Canada on February 26, 2020David Griffiths
La brutalidad del ejercito invasor y el orgullo de los lugareños
Reviewed in Spain on February 15, 2021Dilip Maity
Book is in neat condition.
Reviewed in India on December 7, 2020
Dilip Maity
Reviewed in India on December 7, 2020
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