Authors withdraw from PEN America festival in protest over Israel-Gaza war
Group of more than a dozen writers decry organization’s inadequate response to ‘genocide’ being committed by Israel
February 2024
Open letter criticising PEN America’s stance on Israel-Gaza war reaches 500 signatories
Writers including Roxane Gay have called on the organisation to ‘wake up from its silent, tepid, self-congratulatory middle of the road and take a stand’
May 2021
Dreaming of a better future? Ali Smith, Malcolm Gladwell and more on books to inspire change
As our thoughts turn to life after the pandemic, authors from this year’s Hay festival choose books that have inspired lasting change in them
November 2020
On the brink of a Booker: 2020's shortlisted authors on the stories behind their novels
With the winner due to be announced next week, the six novelists up for the Booker prize reveal their inspirations
September 2020
Most diverse Booker prize shortlist ever as Hilary Mantel misses out
With no room for Mantel’s conclusion to her Wolf Hall trilogy, the six finalists also include four debuts
August 2020
In brief: Strange Flowers; The Shadow King; The System – review
An explosive Tipperary-set thriller, a Booker-longlisted tale of women at war in Ethiopia, and a fascinating ‘biography’ of the internet
February 2020
The Guardian Books podcast
Maaza Mengiste on the Ethiopian women who fought Italy – books podcast
The novelist explains how she discovered her family was woven into history, plus the new wave of Ethiopian literature in English
January 2020
Maaza Mengiste: ‘The language of war is always masculine’
Book of the day
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste review – remembering Ethiopia’s female soldiers
April 2016
PEN World Voices festival: what can novelists do to help the refugee crisis?
Marlon James, Sunjeev Sahota, Laila Lalami and Maaza Mengiste discussed the subject of dislocation and how to ‘sit in the discomfort’ of refugees’ stories
July 2015
Taiye Selasi: stop pigeonholing African writers
Why must writers from Africa always bear the burden of representing their continent? They should be granted artistic freedom, as other authors are
May 2015
World library
The best books on Ethiopia: start your reading here
Our literary tour of Ethiopia covers the traumatic overthrow of the monarchy and the bloody revolution that followed, taking in past and present, fact and fiction
April 2010
Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste
A fictional family acts as a microcosm of Ethiopia in its years of turmoil, says Aida Edemariam
