Lithouse Podcast

The young girl Hirut starts working for a wealthy couple, but is soon brought into their many quarrels, their jealousy and grief over the loss of a child. This is Ethiopia in the 1930s. Things go from bad to worse when Italy, led by Mussolini, invades the country, and Hirut’s master is tasked with organizing an opposition army. His wife refuses to wait at home for him, and creates her own force, made up by women. In the capital, emperor Selassie attempts to shut out the dire situation through the sound of opera.In her novel The Shadow King, Maaza Mengiste takes as her starting point a central chapter in the history of Ethiopia , as well as her own family history. She invites us into the realities of the servant Hirut and her madame, but also that of the army leader Kidane, the Italian soldier Ettore and the emperor Haile Selassie. The result is a polyphonic novel that broadens our perceptions of the Ethiopian-Italian war and the lives of human beings in this great history.Mengiste was born in E