Name: The Shadow King
ISBN: 9780393083569

Maaza Mengiste

"A brilliant novel, lyrically lifting history towards myth. It's also compulsively readable. I devoured it in two days." -- Salman Rushdie

The Shadow King

Isabel 

Not many are born when they should be. How I hope this time is meant for you.

The photographic negative has been printed and flipped and printed again as if a life happening left-to-right and right-to-left is the same. 

Haven't I taught you to question those who want to hide their brutal deeds behind some invisible gods?

We are going to make Icarus and hurl him into the sun.

Book that had a remarkable beginning, but began to get drowned out by the numerous characters and perspectives and felt drawn out. Nonetheless, I learned a lot from a historical context and thought it was still a good read. 

Aisha Mugo

I started out loving it. I was invested in Hirut and that household. But then the character list kept getting bigger, and we just kept jumping from one POV to another. It also felt like it ended and the epilogue wasn't really needed. I as ready for it to be done at the last depicted battle.

I think the Homer bit went over my head. I don't know that reference well enough for it to add anything to the novel for me. More literary folks might see some genius in it. But the themes were good. Especially in the beginning, the depiction of the roles of women in that society and how they share so many similarities while being in different classes. 

Definitely worth a read if you want to learn about this time period. I learned a lot that I never would have known otherwise.

Leila Somani-Davis

Mélissa DANIEL

Brishti Basu

Tarannum Kamlani

Stavroula Kalantzis

Joël

Connie

Jonathan Grunert

Liz Prinz

An utterly captivating novel about female strength. Set during Mussolini's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, The Shadow King casts a light on the women soldiers written out of African history

The Shadow King

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