Wife's Tale

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 the next century her world changed beyond recognition. She wi

tnessed 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.

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 an ancient cycle of festivals and the rhythms of the seasons.

Acum o suta de ani, o fata s-a nascut in orasul Gondar din nordul Etiopiei. Inainte de a avea zece ani, Yetemegnu era casatorit cu un barbat cu doua decenii in varsta, un poet-preot ambitios.