Customer Reviews

The God Who Begat a Jackal: A Novel

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This haunting first novel is steeped in African folklore and brimming with the class, ethnic and religious struggles of pre-colonial Africa. Aster, the beautiful and intelligent daughter of a feudal lord dares to love one of her father's slaves. Gudu is a deep thinker, a gentle soul born into the lowest stratum of a brutal society. A captivating storyteller, he is among the most prized possessions of Aster's father, Count Ashenafi.

When Gudu and Aster's love is discovered, Gudu barely escapes with his life. He finds refuge and acceptance among Count Ashenafi's enemies, eventually leading them in war against the Count. All the while, the two lovers still dream of being together. Gudu builds a mansion for Aster in his adopted city, while Aster plots to avoid a forced marriage to a man of her father's choosing.

The middle of the book is slowed down somewhat by lengthy and tedious accounts of Gudu's exploits after he joins the Count's enemies.

Through a spare and lyrical prose, Mr. Mezlekia weaves a deeply felt tale that occasionally surprises us with its mythic occurrences, not the least of which involves the ultimate fate of the heroine.

The love story was very engaging in this novel. However, about halfway through, it's lost and suddenly the plot became bogged down with historical information. It totally lost me and I found myself skipping pages. I think Nega is a great writer with much potential as a novelist. His first book was superb. I just think he needs to go back and perfect his novel writing skills. He's not there yet. The structure of this book was off. Historical elements are important but they need to be in the background, coloring the plot. More subtle. I eagerly await his next novel.

Historical fiction is a genre that I always thought you have to suspend disbelief to a certain degree. That is usually supplanted strongly with the backdrop of history, allowing the reader to believe that the events actually have or at least may have happened.

Mezlekia unfortuanately sabotages this with his antics of magic and unlikelihoods in plot, that moves it more into a genre I'd like to call historical fantasy. But unlike Wilbur Smiths' River God series where the scenery of history and the fantastic elements he uses, Mezlekia writes a story that only confuses the reader and is filled with slow moving sections that only encourages skimming. Gudu and Aster's characters are developed well in some ways, but their motivations for some of their doings come across as baffling at times.

This is a good beach book, that's all it is really for me at the moment.

Aster and her doting, desperate and despotic father.

Gudu, born a slave and growing into a talented master-poet in the courts of Count Ashenafi; to a young man in love, risking great danger of detection; to a rebel-leader, finding himself in the fore-front of a people's struggle not just with war and survival, but also with social status, religion and superstition.

The abettors, ancient war patriarchs, who live for the whiff of battle and consider it a shame to leave any side floundering in a conflict.

Nega Mzelekia paints a surreal yet vivid landscape, laced with East African folklore and brimming with wit and humour. A beautiful novel. I had to read it twice, chuckling silently to myself every other line.

This is a well-written story set in the vicinity of the Ethiopian town of Harer in the years 1750-1800, according to the author's postscript. It tells of a love-affair destined for failure due to reasons of differing social status. As a backdrop, there are currents of class and religious struggles.

The problem is that the religious struggle is between Amma and Mawu-Lisa, which were, according to the postscript, indigenous African religions. Perhaps indigenous African, but not indigenous Ethiopian. In being more universally African, the novel loses what is uniquely Ethiopian.

At the time the story takes place, historical Harer is an Islamic stronghold in a Christian empire. Christianity is part of the country's soul. But, there is no mention of Islam or Christianity in the book. Instead, there are people passing through walls or taking to the air, powered by African magic.

Thankfully, the author cannot completely escape his Ethiopian roots. Even in this alternate reality some things ring true to life in (the real) Ethiopia, such as the pervasiveness of a religion, the different societal expectation of men and women, and some of the peoples' social customs.