The Wife's Tale: A Personal History

By Aida Edemariam

A FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD: The true story of one indomitable woman caught in the tumult of an extraordinary century in Ethiopia, The Wife's Tale has the sweep and lyrical power that captivated readers of Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone.

A hundred years ago, a girl was born in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar. Before she was ten years old, Yetemegnu was married to a man two decades her senior, an ambitious poet-priest. Over her lifetime her world changed beyond recognition. She witnessed Fascist invasion and occupation, Allied bombardment and exile from her city, the ascent and fall of Emperor Haile Selassie, revolution and civil war. She endured all these things alongside parenthood, widowhood and the death of children.

The Wife's Tale is an intimate memoir, of both a life and a country. In prose steeped in Yetemegnu's distinctive voice and point of view, Aida Edemariam retells her grandmother's stories of a childhood surrounded by proud priests and soldiers, of her husband's imprisonment, of her fight for justice--all of it played out against the rhythms of the natural world and an ancient cycle of religious festivals. She introduces us to a rich cast of characters--emperors and empresses, scholars and nuns, Marxist revolutionaries and wartime double agents--and through these encounters takes us deep into the landscape and culture of this many-layered, often mischaracterized country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9780307361738

Aida Edemariam

Aida Edemariam, whose father is Ethiopian and mother Canadian, grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,. She studied English literature at Oxford University and the University of Toronto, and has worked as a journalist in New York (Harper's Magazine), Toronto, and London, where she is a senior feature writer and editor for The Guardian. Her first book, The Wife's Tale, was named a Finalist for the prestigious Governor General's Award for Nonfiction in Canada. Aida Edemariam lives in Oxford.

Reviews for The Wife's Tale

[charl08-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Light rains, spots of fresh green grass. Storks fly north. Women prepare fuel for the rainy season: deadwood, and sundried cow dung coated with mud. Caravans hurry home from Sudan. Fishing in rivers. Children sing of the country’s wellbeing to storks, men and women picnic outside, celebrating the birthday of Mary."This was every bit as marvellous as the reviews and prizes suggest it is. The author tells the story of her grandmother, who was married as a child and by virtue of a long life saw huge change in Ethiopia. She lived under imperial rule, witnessed the Italian invasion, and then British bombs. She lived through the takeover of the Marxist-Leninist influenced Derg, and the terrible famines everyone over a certain age will no doubt picture when someone mentions Ethiopia. This isn't a universal picture: the author doesn't hide the affluence of her grandmother's family. But her privilege meant that she travelled and witnessed more than some, and as a woman her experience across the century is now very much of an almost unrecognisable past, and was of the past even to her children and grandchildren. I loved the way the author structured the book around Ethiopian months, with a description of the season and traditional work.

[ma_washigeri · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

And a half star. Started this book in Gondar on my first visit to Africa. It helped bring a depth to my experiences and because I was there in many of the places she spent her life, brought sights and smells and sounds, plant and trees, animals and birds, food and drink, and people - all new to me and all making reading the memoir of Yetemegnu richer and deeper. I loved the structure and poetry of Aide Edemariam's writing and the description of recent (and some more ancient) history of Ethiopia.

[jane3phillips-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Spanning 100 years, this is a fascinating memoir of the author's grandmother, who was born and raised in the city of Gondar in Ethiopia. Married at 8 to a man (a poet-priest) who was over three times her age, this memoir follows her life through the changing world of the 20th century, witnessing Fascist invasion, revolution, civil war and famine, whilst enduring parenthood, widowhood and the death of children. Edemariam's retelling of her grandmother's stories opens up a new world and culture to the reader.