The Shadow King Maaza Mengiste by Maaza Mengiste 9780393651096, 0393651096, B07P686CXR instant download after payment.

A gripping novel set during Mussolini’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, Maaza Mengiste takes us back to the first real conflict of World War II, saluting the soldiers written out of history in her captivating exploration of female power, and what it means to be a woman at war. 

Ethiopia. 1935. With the threat of an Italian invasion looming, the commanders of Emperor Haile Selassie’s army rush to mobilise their strongest men. Hirut and the other women long to do more than care for the wounded and bury the dead. When Haile Selassie goes into exile, Hirut devises a plan to maintain morale. She disguises a peasant as the emperor and becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms.  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. 

‘The Shadow King is a meticulously researched and lyrical novel, a beautifully constructed historical fiction of women in war. We were drawn into the story of Hirut, the lead character who has, until now, never been heard. It is a brave, noble, gripping book that would not have been written at any other point in history.’  -  2020 Booker Prize Judges

Maaza Mengiste was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in March, 1971. A Fulbright Scholar and professor in the MFA in Creative Writing & Literary Translation programme at Queens College, she is the author of The Shadow King and Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, named one of the Guardian’s Ten Best Contemporary African Books. Her work can be found in the New Yorker, Granta, and the New York Times, among other publications.