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Title: Notes from the Hyena's Belly : An Ethiopian Boyhood by Nega Mezlekia ISBN: 0-312-28914-6 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 05 January, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.53 (19 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: More than just a story of cruelty, war and terror...
Comment: This is a memoir of the author's boyhood and young manhood in Ethiopia. Born in 1958 to a middle-class family in the city of Jijiga, Mr. Mezlekia left Ethiopia in 1980 and is now a professional engineer living in Toronto. Narrated with a light touch and a mixture of myth and fantasy, he opens a world for the western reader that has too long been influenced by nothing more than photos of skeletal images of starving children and grinding poverty.
This story, however, is much more than that. From the start, there's a wide variety of interesting characters and a rich warm family life. There's Mustafa, the swindler, who boards at his home; there's Mr. Alula, the teacher, whose severe forms of discipline call for retribution by boyhood pranks; there's Wondwossen, his childhood companion, who joins a guerilla army with him; there are his sisters who never stop feuding. But most memorable of all is his mother, who holds her family together during the extreme hardships which inevitably come to this violent and war-torn land.
He was 14 yeas old in 1972, a time when idealism and student protests were sweeping the globe. In Ethiopia, however, students were gunned down and murdered. Young Nega was jailed often and regularly, and always tortured, but somehow his descriptions of this time in his life are told with a touch of lightness. Years later, in 1977, when over 100,000 people are murdered in seven months during the "Red Terror" and bodies laid out over the streets, he yearns for the time when they were all just simply tortured. Throughout the book, I couldn't help shuddering at the all the cruelty. From the brutality of the schools, to scenes in the hospital where patients were beaten, to the way that monkeys were slaughtered, I found it disturbing how easily such things were taken for granted.
Although Mr. Mezlekia does his best to describe the political situation, I found it hard to follow the various juntas and guerillas and political parties. The fantasies and myths, which I usually don't care for in literature, seemed very right for this book however. It was a constant reminder to me that this story did not come from a western author. Mr. Mezlekia is truly a witness to his times. He has certainly widened my understanding of his world.
Rating: 3
Summary: Bends in the Life of Nega Mezlekia
Comment: Nega ought to be commended for having written a rich and poignant book depicting the abundantly tragic story of Ethiopia at a segment in time. His recounting of some minute details--from the comical and bittersweet incidents of his early childhood years to the ominous political and social turmoil was certainly worth reading about even for a person who was born and raised in Ethiopia such as myself. We were all Ethiopians back then, but alas, we lived on different planets.
Having said that, I wish the book explained some important issues more clearly.
Case in point: When the not-so-beautiful girl recruited Nega as a foot soldier for EPRP, I thought he was going to join that party. But that seemed to have never happened. In stead he joined the Western Somalia Liberation Front. What transpired for him and his friend to join this front? I admired his open mindedness and his desire to change what he can, but it still struck me as odd that an Amhara had to join a Somali ethnic based movement. Was it just that they stumbled onto the rebels' camp by accident?
I wish the author also mentioned his father more and gave us a sense of what the man was like. Mentioning "Mam" so much gave the impression that Nega and his siblings were raised practically in a single-parent home with no father figure whatsoever. (Father was mentioned in very rare occasions).
The author also seemed somewhat embittered and cynical in many locations. Having lived through the experiences he did, these emotions may just have to be displayed, but I wish he took more effort to provide us with some insight into the sunny sides of Ethiopian life.
Also the book could have used more editing. But these incidents do not take away from the overall richness of the book.
Rating: 4
Summary: !!! Alright !!!
Comment: I read "Notes From The Hyena's Belly" because my 7th grade English teacher assigned it to me personally. At first I honestly thought that it was going to be just a stupid autobiography, but it turned out to be excellent!!!
"Notes From The Hyena's Belly" was a book that started from the very second Mezlekia was born, and told his story until he left Ethiopia later in his life. But this is not just a long autobiography that stuck strictly to the facts. It was VERY funny, and generally politically correct... :-D
Combining fact with humor, Mezlekia creates an image of his life in Ethiopia so vivid, you feel that you are there, following him around. From school to church, each part of the book is beautifully orchestrated so that everything makes sense. The book moves at a quick pace, but not so fast that you don't have time to enjoy the occasional joke. :-D Hehehe. A good book. And the moral of THIS story is, if your teacher tells you to read a biography/autobiograohy of choice, take the fun way out and read this one!!!
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Title: The God Who Begat a Jackal : A Novel by Nega Mezlekia ISBN: 0312287011 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 05 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: The Ethiopians: A History (Peoples of Africa) by Richard Pankhurst ISBN: 0631224939 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Lonely Planet Ethiopian Amharic Phrasebook (LONELY PLANET ETHIOPIAN AMHARIC PHRASEBOOK) by Tilahun Kebede, Catherine Snow ISBN: 174059133X Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk by Palden Gyatso, Palden Gyatso, Tsering Shakya, Dalai Lama, Palden ISBN: 0802135749 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Ethiopia, 3rd: The Bradt Travel Guide by Philip Briggs ISBN: 1841620351 Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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