The Wife's Tale A Personal History by Aida Edemariam

Born in 1916, and a child bride at eight years old, Aida Edemariam's grandmother has stood, shaking, as fascist troops searched her home for guns she knew were there; in the late 1930s and early 40s she fled both Italian and Allied bombardment. She has begged for mercy from Emperor Haile Selassie, for a husband imprisoned for treason, then, widowed, spent the 50s personally wresting from the emperor a promise to educate five of her seven living children. For thirteen years she fought through courts unused to women defending their assets. A feudal landlord herself, she felt the first tremors of the coming revolution, then, in the 70s, watched it burst into flower: night after night she listened, praying desperately, to the firing squads of the Red Terror, and endured soldiers tramping through her home. She has seen her land nationalised and her children imprisoned or exiled. She has also (in her 60s) learned to read, and been a pilgrim to Jerusalem. Aida, here records her grandmother's enthralling stories, which span the most extraordinary century in Ethiopian history - in which feudal fiefdoms run by slave-owning warlords gave way to centralised empire; centralised empire became Marxist dictatorship; Marxist dictatorship became (in name at least) democracy.

Publisher:	Harper
Year:	2018
Binding:	Paperback
ISBN:	9780008191757
Condition:	Fair
Description:	Slightly spotted, some tanning.

Note: This image is from a stock photo and may differ from the actual cover.

SKU: 1585933
Location: Biography