“The Shadow King” by Maaza Mengiste

Set against the backdrop of Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in the late 1930s, The Shadow King follows the awakening of a servant girl, Hirut, who finds purpose, meaning and her own power in the course of fighting–with other Ethiopian women–to repel the invading army. She had accepted her lot in life to be a servant, but rages against Kidane, the man of the house, when he takes her rifle (the one her father gave her and trained her on) before heading off to lead a rebel force against the Italians. The anger over her rifle is only compounded by the relationship–complicated and at times abusive–that Hirut has with both Kidane and his wife, Aster, who’s trying to figure who she is as a woman in a country at war. Another theme that runs through the novel is the desire of children and parents set past mistakes right, even if they know that there’s no undoing the past. We see the Emperor Hailie Selassie haunted, literally, by his regret over sacrificing his daughter for unity that was never achieved. Ettore Navarra, the photographer, reads his parents letters over and over in a futile attempt to better understand them. The final letter he gets from his father carries makes plain his father’s love for him and, unfortunately, only unearths many more questions.

Here are a few of my highlighted passages:

Hirut stares at Aklilu, held in the tenderness of his gaze, unwilling to break away as he nods and touches a hand to his heart then his lips, then nods to her. She begins to understand even as she is swept up in embraces and kisses, that these moments, too, hold a power beyond simple words. These gestures, too, can puncture a night and set it aglow in unspoken promises. As Hirut nods to Aklilu and touches her heart, as she presses her own fingers to her lips and says his name, she feels her chest expand with forgotten warmth. She brings her feet together and straightens her back and she smiles when he does the same and in unison, as one, they salute.

This is from Emperor Haile Selaisse:

Haile Selassie touches the split in his chest held together by the sternum. It is there, in a place no human hand can reach that he feels himself fading away, rubbed out in increments by his enemies. It is a disappearance that begins like this: with forgetfulness and boxes.

And, finally, the photographer Ettore Navarra reads this in a letter from his father:

…I am telling you this because you will not see us again. As surely as my light burns in this office, I will not see my second-born, brother to a ghost, son to a phantom. Do not come back, Ettore. No matter what you hear, do not repeat your father’s history in the place he once called home. Stay in Abyssinia. Find the man you will become. This will not be my last letter but it will be the most truthful. I have always loved you. —your father, Leo.

The story resonates and is made all the more powerful by the sense of regret that suffuses the book. In Maaza Mengiste’s able hands I was left with the sense of sublime melancholy after finishing The Shadow King. And that feeling did not dissipate quickly.

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