Written by award-winning Ethiopian scholar and author Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow King illuminates the role of female soldiers in the second Italo-Ethiopian War. Though it is a work of literary fiction, it is inspired by tales of Mengiste’s own grandmother, Getey, and others who served in the conflict. Blending elements of epic literature, Greek drama, and opera, the novel follows characters on both sides of the conflict to examine The Role of Women in War and History, The Moral Complexities of War, and Personal and National Identity in Times of War. Published by W.W. Norton and Company in 2019, the novel was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.

This guide refers to the Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source novel and this guide include descriptions of war violence, sexual assault, and other harsh realities of conflict.

Plot Summary

Told in nonlinear narrative from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, The Shadow King follows the characters Aster, Kidane, Haile Selassie, and Hirut on the Ethiopian side of the second Italo-Ethiopian War, and Colonel Carlo Fucelli and Ettore Navarra on the Italian side. It opens in 1974, as Ethiopia is poised for revolution against the colonial government. Former honor guard and warrior Hirut travels to Addis Ababa to deliver a box of letters and photographs to former soldier Ettore Navarra before he and all foreigners are ousted from the country. Amid renewed political tension, the photographs transport Hirut back to the tumultuous events of 1935, when Mussolini’s forces invaded Ethiopia.

Hirut is an enslaved servant in the household of Aster and Kidane. Kidane prepares an army while his wife, Aster, and Hirut struggle for power precipitated by Kidane’s unwanted sexual advances on Hirut. Aster finds Hirut’s hidden rifle, her father’s Wujigra, and Kidane commandeers it. Inspired by popular images of the Italian singer Maria Uva shouting the Italian soldiers to war, Aster gathers women and supplies to the cause. Kidane has forbidden her from serving as a soldier, but when the Italians invade, he is absent, and she must lead her women out of danger. In Kidane’s camp, Aster inspires the women to make gunpowder and secretly prepares them to stand with the men.

Tension between Hirut, Aster, and Kidane continues in the mountains near Debark and comes to a head when Hirut steals the Wujigra back from the dying soldier, Diwat. The weapon has failed to fire and left Diwat open to an attack from which he will not recover. Kidane witnesses the theft and channels his guilt into an angry assault on Hirut that ends in rape. Afterward, Kidane continues to rape Hirut nightly.

Far away, Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian Emperor, orders his armies to let the Italians make the first move. Despite war brewing in Europe and Western nations favoring Italy, he tries to rally international support. As he loses Addis Ababa and Dessie and prepares a final offensive from Maichew, he is haunted by Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida and the ghost of his daughter, Zenebwork, whom he forced into marriage with a man who has betrayed him to the Italians. When he loses Maichew, he and his family flee to England.

Meanwhile, Colonel Carlo Fucelli holds the line in the mountains near Debark. With him is a mercenary army of Somali, Sudanese, and Eritrean soldiers, called ascari, who help him adapt his tactics to the land. He also keeps Ethiopian courtesan, Fifi, in his camp despite prohibition against comingling with native Ethiopians. She is the spy, Ferres, who relays messages to Kidane and others.

Fucelli plans to build a prison and tasks Ettore Navarra with photographically documenting his campaign. Since Mussolini’s government has begun persecuting Jewish people in Italy, Fucelli leverages Ettore’s Jewish ancestry to ensure his compliance. Ettore struggles to maintain the moral rectitude his father taught him as obedience becomes his only hope of survival. When Kidane’s scout, Tariku, is captured and hung from a tree, Ettore knows he has failed his father.

Kidane sends assassins to Fucelli in retaliation, but Fifi stops the attacks. Fucelli wallows in fear and humiliation after the assassins nearly castrate him. To maintain dominance, he opens the prison higher in the mountains. Instead of holding prisoners, he will throw them off the cliffs while Ettore documents their fall. He leverages the upcoming census against Ettore and shields him from discovery in exchange for his complicity. Fifi and the cook begin to distribute psychoactive herbs to the prisoners to ease their deaths.

Kidane holds the resistance at the Emperor’s orders, but his troops and Ethiopia itself have lost hope. Hirut notices that the soldier Minim looks just like the Emperor. They produce a plan to make Minim a Shadow King, and Aster and Hirut become his honor guard.

With troops dividing against those with Jewish ancestry, Fucelli looks for a way to strengthen his foothold. Kidane stages an assault on Fucelli’s prison, but the Italians have intercepted transmissions and not only know of the planned attack but have arranged to film it through the Italian propaganda outfit, Luce. Aster and Hirut are captured.

Instead of throwing Aster and Hirut from the cliffs, Fucelli prepares a propaganda campaign to undermine their power as symbols of Ethiopian national identity and resistance. He has Ettore photograph them in the style of pornographic nudes and then distributes them widely to discredit the women. Ettore struggles with the task and tries to explain to Hirut with his few Amharic words that he is Fucelli’s prisoner too. Soon, a telegram arrives ordering Ettore to face punishment for evading the census. Fucelli says he will appeal, but Ettore knows it will be his death. He buries his photographs and letters beneath the gallows tree and tells Hirut, who watches, that they are his secrets.

Kidane sends scouts to raid the camp and free the women. Instead of killing Ettore as planned, Hirut knocks him out cold. Fucelli uses the confusion of the raid to concoct a story that Ettore fought the raiders off, which he believes will show Ettore’s allegiances to Italy. He orders Ettore to whip the ascari leader, Ibrahim, and leaves him bound to the gallows tree. Fifi sends word to Kidane to attack immediately, knowing the ascari will abandon Fucelli in the aftermath for his cruelty. Kidane strikes the prison at dawn and Minim, Aster, and Hirut lead the charge. Kidane and Fucelli both fall in battle. Hirut sees Ettore and tells him to go, but he asks her to dig up his box and save it for him. She agrees.

In 1941, Haile Selassie returns and takes his place as emperor. He rules until 1974, when student protestors call for his ouster. Dressing as a peasant, he flees to the Addis Ababa train station where he witnesses Ettore and Hirut’s tense exchange. She does not wish to give Ettore the last letter from his father, who died in Auschwitz. Hirut recognizes the Emperor and tells him she served the Shadow King and names all who served and were forgotten. The acknowledgment gives her closure, and after giving Ettore the letter, she walks the Emperor back to his palace.