We are more than happy to announce our next reading. We have the great honour to host the acclaimed writer Maaza Mengiste next Thursday, the 29th of June at 8 pm.
Maaza Mengiste is currently residing as a DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Fellow. Thus for the first time we are partnering up with the DAAD and co-present this reading moderated by Fabienne Mahwane. We are very grateful to the Artists-in-Berlin Programm of the DAAD, to Fabienne Mahwane and, of course, to Maaza Mengiste for this opportunity!
You can purchase tickets through our website (in the upper left corner) or in the shop. The reading starts at 8 pm but make sure to be there 15 min in advance so we can start on time.
Maaza Mengiste has wrote two novels “Beneath the Lion‘s Gaze“ in 2010 and “The Shadow King“ that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020. Both have been translated into German (“Der Schattenkönig" erschienen im dtv Verlag). Furthermore she has published many essays in publications such as Granta and The Guardian and has been teaching at various institutions i.e. Queens College. Maaza was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and left with her family as a young child. The story she left behind and the quest to narrate the manifold destinies of Ethiopians have shaped her writing ever since. Or as the DAAD frases it: „Time is the principle focus of Maaza Mengiste‘s life and work“.
On this night we will focus on her second novel, “The Shadow King”. This is what the publishing house W. W. Norton says about it: “Set during Mussolini’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, The Shadow King takes us back to the first real conflict of World War II, casting light on the women soldiers who were left out of the historical record. At its heart is orphaned maid Hirut, who finds herself tumbling into a new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and overwhelming rage. What follows is a heartrending and unputdownable exploration of what it means to be a woman at war.”
The Guardian calls it: “Lyrical, furious and meticulously researched, it is a necessary act of historical reclamation”.
