Maaza Mengiste

Maaza Mengiste (born 1974) is an Ethiopian-American writer and author of the novels Beneath the Lion's Gaze (2010) and The Shadow King (2019), the latter of which was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.[1].

Maaza Mengiste
Mengiste, BookExpo 2019
Born1974 (age 45–46)
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • professor
Alma materNew York University
Genre
  • Fiction
  • non-fiction
Notable works
  • The Shadow King
  • Beneath the Lion's Gaze
Website
maazamengiste.com

Early life

Mengiste was born in 1974 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but left the country at the age of four when her family fled the Ethiopian Revolution. She spent the rest of her childhood in Nigeria, Kenya, and the United States.[2] She later studied in Italy as a Fulbright Scholar and earned an MFA degree in creative writing from New York University.

Career

Mengiste has published fiction and nonfiction dealing with migration, the Ethiopian revolution, and the plight of sub-Saharan immigrants arriving in Europe. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Granta, Lettre Internationale, Enkare Review, Callaloo, The Granta Anthology of the African Short Story, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Her 2010 debut novel Beneath the Lion's Gaze – the story of a family struggling to survive the tumultuous and bloody years of the Ethiopian Revolution – was named one of the 10 best contemporary African books by The Guardian and translated into French, Spanish,[3] Portuguese,[4] German, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish.[5] She was runner-up for the 2011 Dayton Literary Peace Prize,[6] and a finalist for a Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize,[7] an NAACP Image Award, and an Indies Choice Book of the Year Award in Adult Debut. In 2013 she was World Literature Today’s Puterbaugh Fellow. She counts among her influences E. L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Edith Wharton.[8]

Her second novel, The Shadow King (2019), is set during Mussolini's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, shining a light on the women soldiers not usually credited in African history.[9][10] Alex Clark in The Guardian said of it: "It is both a reasonably conventional narrative – there is plenty of action, detailed description and a focus spread between the principal characters – and a subtly unpredictable one. History and modernity are juxtaposed in the factual asymmetries of warfare (the Ethiopians must rely on outdated and often malfunctioning weapons and have no way of long-distance communication beyond running messengers). They are also set side by side in the modes of consciousness that all the characters experience."[11] Michael Schaub of NPR wrote: "The importance of memory — of those that came before us, and of things we'd rather forget — is at the heart of The Shadow King.... The star of the novel, however, is Mengiste's gorgeous writing, which makes The Shadow King nearly impossible to put down. Mengiste has a real gift for language; her writing is powerful but never florid, gripping the reader and refusing to let go. And this, combined with her excellent sense of pacing, makes the book one of the most beautiful novels of the year. It's a brave, stunning call for the world to remember all who we've lost to senseless violence."[12]

Mengiste has also been involved in human rights work. She serves on the advisory board of Warscapes, an independent online magazine that highlights current conflicts across the world, and is affiliated with the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights.[13] Mengiste also serves on the Board of Directors for Words without Borders.[14]

Alongside Edwidge Danticat and Mona Eltahawy, Mengiste contributed a section to Richard E. Robbins's 2013 documentary film Girl Rising on girls' education around the world for 10x10 Films, with narration by Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Alicia Keys, and Cate Blanchett.[15]

Mengiste teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Queens College, City University of New York,[16] and was a lecturer in Creative Writing at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.[17]

From January to June 2020, Mengiste is "writer in residence" of the Literaturhaus Zurich and the PWG Foundation in Zurich.[18]

Awards, honors, and nominations

Works

Books
  • Beneath the Lion's Gaze, W.W. Norton, 2010
  • The Shadow King, W.W. Norton (US), 2019; Canongate (UK).
  • Addis Ababa Noir, Akashic Books, 2020

Essays

References
  1. "The 2020 Booker Prize longlist announced". The Booker Prizes. July 27, 2020. Retrieved August 16, 2020.
  2. Daniel Musiitwa, "Maaza Mengiste Talks About Her Writing and the Power of Individual Stories", AfricaBookClub.com, November 1, 2011.
  3. Bajo La Mirada del Leon, La Mirada Salvaje. Trans. Anna Styczńiska, 2015.
  4. Sob o Olhar do Leão, Editora Record. Trans. Flávia Rössler, 2011
  5. Allfrey, Ellah Wakatama (August 25, 2012). "The 10 best contemporary African books". The Guardian. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
  6. LLC, D. Verne Morland, Digital Stationery International. "Dayton Literary Peace Prize - 2011 Award Finalists". www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
  7. "2010 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel page on the Center for Fiction Website". Archived from the original on August 31, 2013. Retrieved June 4, 2019.
  8. Bady, Aaron, "Interview: Maaza Mengiste", Post45, October 17, 2014.
  9. "The Shadow King". Canongate.
  10. Juliana Rose Pignataro (October 3, 2019), "21 Books to Curl Up With This Fall", Newsweek.
  11. Alex Clarke, "The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste review – remembering Ethiopia’s female soldiers", The Guardian, January 18, 2020.
  12. Schaub, Michael (September 25, 2019). "'The Shadow King' Is A Gorgeous Meditation On Memory, War And Violence". NPR.
  13. "Advisory Board", Warscapes.
  14. "Board of Directors", Words without Borders, February 1, 2019.
  15. "Meet The Girls". Girl Rising. Retrieved August 16, 2020.
  16. "Home". www.qc.cuny.edu. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
  17. "Maaza Mengiste - Lewis Center for the Arts". Archived from the original on April 9, 2013. Retrieved June 4, 2019.
  18. "Writers in Residence Zurich".
  19. "Calendar | American Academy in Rome".
  20. https://twitter.com/FulbrightIT/status/1207325450667790336
  21. Marshall, Alex (July 27, 2020). "Hilary Mantel, Kiley Reid, Anne Tyler in Running for Booker Prize". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 2, 2020.
  22. "Vanishing Virgil". Granta, November 15, 2011.
  23. "Vintage Addis Ababa: Recollections of everyday people: Philipp Schütz, Wongel Abebe, Nafkot Gebeyehu, Wongel Abebe; Philipp Schütz, Maaza Mengiste: 9789994473250: Amazon.com: Books". Retrieved June 4, 2019.
  24. "Photography book". Tumblr. Retrieved June 4, 2019.
  25. "The Art of Books Since 1949". ABRAMS Books. Retrieved June 4, 2019.

General references
  • Biography in Anita Theorell, Afrika har ordet (2010), Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, ISBN 978-91-7106-673-2. (in Swedish)
  • Carin Ståhlberg (October 16, 2010). "Revolutionens offer". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish).
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