Maaza Mengiste: When Italy Invaded Ethiopia (2020 Event)

In Maaza Mengiste’s latest novel, the shadowy nature of figures
from the past is played out in complex and interlocking ways. The
Shadow King is powerful, stirring historical fiction that centres
women within stories of war and battle that have traditionally
excluded them, eliding their contribution and their fight.


Against the backdrop of Italy’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, this
is a story of Africa and Europe, of resistance and exile, of
tradition and modernity, that is sweeping in vision and intimate
in affect.


A Fulbright scholar and the author of Beneath the Lion’s Gaze —
named by the Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African
books — Mengiste talks to Jess Brough in this
event recorded live at the 2020 Book Festival about giving life
to the stories of her parents and grandparents, and unpicking
‘faded documents’ to better understand the heroism and loss of
the past.