Soma Nami’s Books in Review
By Muthoni Muiruri
Welcome to another installment of Soma Nami’s Books in Review. This time we hear from the other half of Soma Nami, Muthoni Muiruri who reviews Maaza Mengiste’s novel Beneath the Lion’s Gaze.
Muthoni Muiruri at Soma Nami Books
BENEATH THE LION’S GAZE BY MAAZA MENGISTE
During the scramble for Africa, Italy invaded Ethiopia and managed to occupy the country for five years before being defeated (Oh, Hail Ethiopia!). The Solomonic Dynasty repelled the invaders, elevating Haile Selassie to Emperor—King of Kings, the Lion of Judah, the Messiah of the Rastafarians, and God incarnate.
Haile Selassie ruled for 60 years until the Derg, a Marxist-Leninist socialist military government, overthrew him in 1974. This is where the novel begins. In his final days as Emperor, Haile Selassie is a besieged man—isolated and abandoned. Ethiopians are furious. Drought has devastated the country, killing nearly a million people with minimal intervention from the Emperor. This quiet discontent quickly escalates into civil unrest, resistance, and disobedience, ultimately leading to his overthrow in a revolution and subsequent smothering to death.
Amid the chaos, a family is unraveling. There’s Hailu, a doctor who benefited from the Emperor’s education program but is torn about his role in the resistance; his wife, Selam, who is ailing and wishes for her family to let her die; and their two sons—Yonas, the realist, and Dawit, the idealist. As the family reaches a breaking point with Selam’s death, they are thrown into turmoil just as Haile Selassie is overthrown, plunging the country into further chaos. The Derg becomes a fascist, ruthless, and dictatorial socialist regime, leading to the deaths of nearly a million Ethiopians and a further descent into anarchy and suppressed freedoms.
When you are convinced that everything that happens is the will of God, what is there to do but wait until God has mercy?”
Mengiste masterfully uses Hailu’s family as a microcosm of Ethiopia. She captures the lives, hearts, decisions, conflicts, suffering, and violence that plagued the nation during the Red Terror era, showing how a revolution can turn against its own people. The prose is melancholic yet powerful, endearing the reader to the characters in all their flaws. In one instance, we hear Haile Selassie in the first person as he grapples with the revolution and its implications for him. Mengiste vividly places us in his mind during his last days, making it feel real and profound, despite being fictional.
Mengiste makes you appreciate Ethiopia’s rich, intricate history and modern-day complexities. The narrative challenges the tired notion that Africa and Africans are ungovernable, with simplistic approaches to governance. Ethiopia, one of the world’s most ancient civilizations, with sophisticated dynasties dating back to King Solomon, exposes the fallacy of such ideas.
You can find “Beneath the Lion’s Gaze” and many more titles at Soma Nami Books (above), an independent, pan-African bookstore with locations in Kilimani and Ngara. www.somanami.co.ke