BY STAFF REPORTER
Recently, BBC on its 26 June 2021 Focus in Africa edition said that Meron Hadero has become the first Ethiopian author to win the prestigious AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. “I’m absolutely thrilled, I’m in shock – being shortlisted in itself was a huge honour,” she told the BBC.
Her winning short story is about an Ethiopian boy called Getu, who has to navigate the fraught power dynamics of NGOs and foreign aid in Addis Ababa. It impressed the judges who found it “utterly without self-pity” and said it “turns the lens” on the usual clichés. Hadero will take home £10,000 ($13,000) in prize money Ethiopian author, Meron Hadero took home the prestigious AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, a first for Ethiopian authors.
Currently, a Steinbeck Fellow at the San Jose State University, the author holds a Masters of Fine Art in creative writing from the University of Michigan, a juris doctoral degree from Yale, and a Bachelor of Arts in history from Princeton. Before this prize, Hadero’s work was widely acknowledged and published. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her essay The Displaced Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives was published by The New York Times and will form a part of the forthcoming anthology Letter to a Stranger:
The author was born in Ethiopia and raised in the USA by parents who are both medical doctors. Her sister is the singer Meklit Hadero, whose support was “absolutely essential” to her success, Hadero says. She says stories of “refugees, immigrants and those at risk of being displaced” are always the “entry-point emotionally” to her work.
“With The Street Sweep, he has that threat looming. He’s facing losing his ancestral home, and that’s the real driver of the story that makes him take charge and try to re-write that outcome that seems kind of inevitable,” Hadero told BBC Focus on Africa.
Much of The Street Sweep is set in Addis Ababa’s Sheraton Hotel, where Getu is invited for a party. “Looking through his eyes it’s almost a culture shock when he goes there,” Hadero said. “I did want to paint that contrast… What does that access mean? And what does that bestow? That’s the bigger question of what those open doors represent.”
Furthermore, The Street Sweep Writing short stories has been “it’s own love” for the author, who likened the form to a “contained laboratory” from which “pared down and elegant” tales can emerge. Her next challenge is her debut novel, which “is really fun to work on in a different way.
Meron’s short stories have also been shortlisted for the 2019 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing and appear in Best American Short Stories, Ploughshares, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Zyzzyva, The New England Review, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, Addis Ababa Noir, 40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology, and others.
Her writing has also been published in The New York Times Book Review, the anthology The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, and will appear in the forthcoming anthology Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us. Her work has been supported by the International Institute at the University of Michigan, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and Artist Trust. A 2019-2020 Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University.
Meron has also held fellowships at the World Affairs Council, Yaddo, Ragdale, and MacDowell, where she received an NEA award. She appeared in San Francisco Magazine’s 2018 feature “Making Waves: 100 Artists Putting the East Bay on the Map” described as “a master list of musicians, artists, writers, dancers, directors, actors, and poets shaping the culture, all from the East Bay.”
Meron is a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto, an alum of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she worked as a research analyst for the President of Global Development, and holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, a JD from Yale Law School (Washington State Bar), and a BA in history from Princeton with a certificate in American studies.
She has produced 40 Short Stories: “The Suitcase” originally in The Missouri Review, Fall 2015 Portable Anthology, 6th Edition, edited by Beverly Lawn & Joanne Diaz, Bedford/St. Martin’s (Macmillan Learning), 2021. Selected Shorts, NPR/PRI performed by Renée Elise Goldsberry of Hamilton. Aired January 2017 and September 2018. Best American Short Stories 2016 and the 2016 Best American sampler. “Medallion” in the New England Review, Fall 2020. “The Drought That Drowned Us” in Ploughshares, guest edited by Celeste Ng, Summer 2020. “Kind Stranger” in Addis Ababa Noir, edited by Maaza Mengiste, Akashic Books, 2020.
“A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times” in The Iowa Review, Winter 2018/2019. “The Street Sweep” in Zyzzyva, Winter 2018. Winner of the 2021 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. “The Wall” in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 52, 2018 are some her publications.
Moreover, shortlisted for the 2019 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing: “Sinkholes” in Indiana Review, Summer 2017. “Preludes” in The Offing, January 2016. “Mekonnen aka Mack aka Huey Freakin’ Newton” in Boulevard, Fall 2015. A Distinguished Story in Best American Short Stories 2016. Glimmer Train Fiction Open Finalist, 2014. “Swearing In, January 20, 2009” in The Normal School Online, August 2015.
The Ethiopian Herald August 17/2021
