BY MULUGETA GUDETA
In Africa, women writers have rarely attracted global attention or had progressed to the top of international literary events such as the Booker Prize. There is only one Nobel Prize woman winning novelist in Africa and that is the late South African Nadine Gordimer.
Among the contemporary women writers who achieved international acclaim is Meaza Mengiste with her debut novel entitled “Beneath the Lion’s Gaze” a story of the Ethiopian revolution and the political upheavals that followed it.
A young woman from Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozy Adichi is among the most notable contemporary female writers. Her bestselling novel “Americanah” is set both in Nigeria and America dealing with the dilemmas faced by two young immigrants in love whose destinies took different directions. The novel is set in the US, Britain and Nigeria.
There are a handful of women writers in Ethiopia who whose works appear in the local languages such as Amharic but none other than Meaza Mengiste have shined in the international literary contest. She did not win the highly coveted Book Prize but she was long listed for the honor and that is an immense achievement in its own right. No Ethiopian woman writer has so far hit the international headlines as did Meaza recently.
Meaza’s near miss novel is called “The Shadow King” and it is the story of a young woman who is fighting against the Italian invaders as the narrative is set in 1935.While the war was looming in the dark horizon, a young woman called Hirut was employed as a maid at Kidane’s home. He is an officer in of Emperor Haile Sellasie ‘s army mobilizing soldiers for the inevitable invasion.
Hirut and her friends decide to do more to the resistance than care for the wounded and bury the dead. When the Emperor left the country and went into exile, the people lose hope while Hirut took the initiative to dress an ordinary peasant as the emperor and used him to mobilize other women for the resistance.
However, her personal war was around the corner and she Was soon made prisoner of one of the most vicious fascist officers and her struggles to free herself from captivity give “the Shadow King” an epic character that has never been explored before by any African woman writer. Thus Meaza Mengiste is the first writer to address the theme of war and the role of women in it, a topic that is often ignored even by many serious authors in the West.
Meaza’s life journey is equally amazing. Most African writers who achieved some degree of literary success are often born and raised in the United States or Britain. Chief among them is Dinaw Mengistu who was born and raised in the US and dealt with the experience of Ethiopian immigrants in the US in his books such as “Children of the Revolution” and others. Some of his works have won prestigious awards.
According to available note on her biography, Meaza was born in 1974 in Addis Ababa and went to the US on a Fulbright where she studied literature and became a professor in creative writing and literary translation. Her debut novel “Beneath the Lion’s Gaze” was named one the ten African best contemporary books. She is also a noted essayist whose writing have appeared in prestigious publications such the New Yorker, Granta and the New York Times , among others. She is married and lives in New York city.
“Beneath the Lion’s Gaze” is Meaza’a debut novel. The New York Times Book Review wrote the following about the novel. “An important novel, rich in compassion for its anguished characters.” This memorable, heart breaking story opens in Addis Ababa in 1974, on the eve of the revolution. Yonas kneels in his mother’s prayer room, pleading for his god for an end to the violence that has wrecked his family and country.
His father Hailu a prominent doctor, has been ordered to report to jail after helping a victim of state sanctioned torture to die.. And Dawit. Hailu;s youngest son, has joined an underground resistance movement-a choice that will lead to more upheaval and bloodshed across a ravaged Ethiopia.
“Beneath the Lion’s Gaze” tells a gripping story of family, of the bonds of love and friendship set in a time and place that has rarely been explored in fiction. It is a story about the lengths human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the human price of national revolution. Emotional, gripping, poetic and indelibly tragic the book is a transcendent and powerful debut”
There is also an interesting coincidence in the “Shadow King” which was set against the background of the 1974 Ethiopian revolution. That is coincidentally the year Meaza was born. The author of the book and the subject matter have the same birthday.
Meaza did not witness the revolutionary events that climaxed in the Red Terror and to so much tragic events but she has succeed in producing a gripping story of a historical event to which she was not a witness. Some of the world’s top books on revolutions were written by male authors who were themselves participants of the events.
One example is Boris Pasternak’s masterpiece novel about the Russian revolution entitled “Dr. Zhivago”. The book was made into a film that was an international sensation.
In the two books she has already produced, Meaza does not write about contemporary issues but about historical events. Both “Beneath the Lion’s Gaze” and “The Shadow King” are set in the long past and deal with critical phases in Ethiopian history.
Meaza’s fascination with historical events may be personal but one cannot overlook the huge amount of research she had done for the two books and this is perhaps the reason why the books appeared with a ten year gap from one another. That is to say Meaza has spent ten years researching “The Shadow King” as she herself has confirmed in some of her comments.
As many critics have noticed, Meaza’s ability to grasp the two historical events and portray them in a realistic and convincing manners as if she was a witness to them is simply amazing. There are a number of books written in Amharic about the Italian fascist occupation of Ethiopia.
Some members of the older generation of writers such as Sahle Sellassie Berhanu Zerihun have already dealt with the theme of the occupation and its social impacts. These books were written for local readers and the authors had the advantage of hindsight as well as personal memory as they were born at the time of the event.
Meaza’s contribution to Ethiopian story telling is likewise immense. She has produced a modern novel that deals with past event. Students of Ethiopian literature and history will certainly benefit from her works. Ethiopian students of English literature as well as Ethiopians who write in English will also greatly benefit from her books.
The fact that Meaza writes in English does not in any way diminish the importance of her works because the issues she raised have global implications and interest. This is in fact the magic of literature.
Most importantly, Meaza can serve as an inspiration to many young and upcoming Ethiopian aspiring writers both at home and in the Diaspora. They may follow her example and give expression to their talents and show to the world that Ethiopians are capable of writing fiction in respectable English. Meaza may have another project in mind.
Will it be about contemporary issues or about historical events? We should wait and see what kind of book she will give the world next time as an enduring gift.
The Ethiopian Herald December 6/2020
