Booker Longlist #5: The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

Continuing the Booker journey, it is becoming clearer to me that this is one of the strongest longlists in years. Each new book confirms that the chosen thirteen for the most part are stellar examples of literary fiction, works that explore the unexplored or tell similar stories that delve into different themes. And while most don't seem to over experiments in form or structure, the writing itself has been breathtaking at times.

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste is no exception. Taking place during the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia in the 1930s, Mengiste crafts a beautifully written story that recentres the forces of Ethiopian resistance to include the role and voices of women soldiers, who played a vital role in pushing back against and eventually defeating the Italian invasion. Although the Shadow King gives important voice to the Ethopian emperor, Haile Selassie, and his loyal officer, Kidane, the most significant protagonists are the women, Aster (Kidane's wife) and Hirut (their maid), who are eager to take up arms and support the anti-Italian forces beyond traditional roles of nursing the wounded men. It is Hirut who comes up with the ingenious plan of disguising a peasant as the Emperor (the real one exiled in England) to help mobilize Ethiopian forces against the occupying army, whose willingness to commit war crimes had worked to demoralize resistance. 

On a purely sentence level, The Shadow King may be the most beautifully crafted work on the longlist (so far) and that is saying a lot, especially with the weight of Hilary Mantel's prose right there. There were moments were I was left breathless with the power of the imagery and feeling expressed in Mengiste's words. Plotted elegantly, The Shadow King does not linger in its prose, even though it could. Instead, it moves quickly, back and forth between the protagonists, each plotting key strategic decisions in the battle between Italian imperial forces and the resistance to its colonial intentions. If there was one fault in this book, however, it is the number of perspectives. Besides Aster and Hirut, significant amount of time is spent with Kidane, Selassie, the Italian commander Carlo Fucelli and his Jewish photographer (Ettore, whose backstory in itself could have been a novel). This broadened the scope of the events, but also lost some focus for the larger goals Mengiste is trying to accomplish.

Despite this, however, this is one of the more important novels on the longlist. It provides a unique perspective to historic events we don't know enough about. Add to this the incredible level of writing, I feel that The Shadow King may very well be one of the favourites to take the prize.