Addis Ababa Noir
Sulaiman Addonia
(Contribution by)
Description
Maaza Mengiste's story "Dust, Ash, Flight" has won the 2021 Edgar Award for Best Short Story, presented by the Mystery Writers of America!
"Several of the 14 stories here, most of them striking and accomplished, involve post-revolution loss, guilt and revenge. Some are surreal--fitting for a culture where, as Mengiste writes in her introduction, 'there are men who live in the mountains of Ethiopia and can turn into hyenas.'" --Washington Post
Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city.
Brand-new stories by: Maaza Mengiste, Adam Reta, Mahtem Shiferraw, Linda Yohannes, Sulaiman Addonia, Meron Hadero, Mikael Awake, Lelissa Girma, Rebecca Fisseha, Solomon Hailemariam, Girma T. Fantaye, Teferi Nigussie Tafa, Hannah Giorgis, and Bewketu Seyoum.
From the introduction by Maaza Mengiste:
"What marks life in Addis Ababa are the starkly different realities coexisting in one place. It's a growing city taking shape beneath the fraught weight of history, myth, and memory. It is a heady mix. It can also be disorienting, and it is in this space that the stories of Addis Ababa Noir reside . . .
"These are not gentle stories. They cross into forbidden territories and traverse the damaged terrain of the human heart. The characters in these pages are complicated, worthy of our judgment as much as they somehow manage to elude it. The writers have each discovered their own ways to get us to lean in while forcing us to grit our teeth as we draw closer . . .
"Despite the varied and distinct voices in these pages, no single book can contain all of the wonderful, intriguing, vexing complexities of Addis Ababa. But what you will read are stories by some of Ethiopia's most talented writers living in the country and abroad. Each of them considers the many ways that myth and truth and a country's dark edges come together to create something wholly original--and unsettling."
Product Details
| Publisher | Akashic Books, Ltd. |
| Publish Date | August 04, 2020 |
| Pages | 256 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781617758201 |
| Dimensions | 8.2 X 5.2 X 0.8 inches | 0.6 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
Each contributor embraces day-to-day life in Ethiopia, and fills each story with a rich sense of time, place, and character. The authors reveal much about a culture unfamiliar to many American readers.-- "Publishers Weekly"
Novelist Mengiste presents 14 stories showcasing Ethiopia's capital at its darkest . . . A nice variety of bad behavior. East, West: Noir's best.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
The 14 stories in the collection give one a snapshot of Ethiopian writers, new and established, and of what they can do. It makes one scramble for more of their work. Mengiste and Akashic have done us a service by putting together this intriguing collection.-- "New York Journal of Books"
While most stories told about or set in Africa deny the continent and the nearly 60 countries that constitute it narrative complexity, this anthology works overtime to get specific about the people and problems that define Addis Ababa.-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"
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