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About
Nega Mezlekia's memoir Notes from the Hyena's Belly was described in the New York Times Book Review as "the most riveting book about Ethiopia since Ryszard Kapuscinski's literary allegory The Emperor and the most distinguished African literary memoir since Soyinka's Aké appeared 20 years ago." Mezlekia now offers a first novel steeped in African folklore and teeming with the class, ethnic and religious struggles of pre-colonial Africa. In The God Who Begat a Jackal, the 17th-century feudal system, vassal uprisings, religious mythology, and the Crusades are intertwined with the love between Aster, the daughter of a feudal lord, and Gudu, the court jester and family slave. Aster and Gudu's relationship is the ultimate taboo, but supernatural elements presage a destiny more powerful than the rule of man. With Mezlekia's enchanting storytelling and ironic humor, readers glimpse African deities that have long since weathered away and the social cleavages that have endured through time.
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Reviews
"Melzekia has done it again: Spare yet lush, The God Who Begat a Jackal recreates a world that evokes the haunted but enchanting paradise that is East Africa. His narrative voice rings so true--unique but universal, and yet authentic to a particular time and place."
Ken Wiwa, author of In the Shadow of a Saint
"The God Who Begat a Jackal is everything a novel should be. It delivers an entire world--a profound, comical, moving, and memorable one. The moral and social truths of this novel--subtly and brilliantly evoked--are reminiscent of the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Nega Mezlekia is a writer with extraordinary vision."
Margaret Cezair-Thompson, author of The True History of Paradise
"In The God Who Begat a Jackal, Mezlekia takes the elements of the simplest of fairy stories--forbidden love, an heiress and a storytelling slave--and embroiders them lushly . . . The imagined world of his novel ends up as . . . fabulous in the most literal of senses."
Michael Pye, The New York Times