Addis Ababa Noir

A collection of intriguing noir stories, capturing the complexities of the Ethiopian city, Addis Ababa.

List of contents

11 Introduction
PART I: PAST
HAUNTINGS
17 Kind Stranger
29 A Double-Edged Inheritance
47 Ostrich
66 Dust, Ash, Flight
PART II:
TRANSLATIONS OF GRIEF
91 Father Bread
105 The Blue Shadow
120 A Night in Bela Sefer
PART III:
MADNESS DESCENDS
137 Insomnia
153 Of the Poet and the Café
174 Under the Minibus Ceiling
183 Of Buns and Howls
PART IV:
POLICE AND THIEVES
207 Kebele ID
220 None of Your Business
228 Agony of the Congested Heart

244 About the Contributors

About the author

Maaza Mengiste is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Scholar Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Arts Writers Grant Program. Her debut novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, was selected by the Guardian as one of the ten best contemporary African books and was named one of the best books of 2010 by the Christian Science Monitor and the Boston Globe. Her second novel, The Shadow King, was published in September 2019.Sulaiman Addonia is an Eritrean-Ethiopian-British novelist. His novel The Consequences of Love, short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, was translated into more than twenty languages. He currently lives in Brussels where he has launched a creative writing academy for refugees and asylum seekers, along with the Asmara-Addis Literary Festival (In Exile). Silence Is My Mother Tongue, his second novel, was long-listed for the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.Mikael Awake is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York, who was born in Boston to Ethiopian parents. His fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, Witness, and Callaloo. He is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at Lafayette College.Girma T. Fantaye is an Ethiopian writer based in Addis Ababa. In 2007, Fantaye cofounded Ethiopia’s leading political weekly newspaper, the now defunct Addis Neger, which was shut down due to government pressure. In 2013 he published a collection poetry in Amharic, Yetefachewun Ketema Hasesa (The Quest for the Lost City), and his debut novel, Self Meda (Fields of Queue), was published in 2014. He is currently working on a new Amharic novel.Rebecca Fisseha is the author of the novel Daughters of Silence (Goose Lane Editions), which was a Quill & Quire magazine breakout debut of 2019, and was selected by Margaret Atwood for the 2020 gritLIT Festival Spotlight Series. Her short stories, essays, and articles have appeared in Selamta, Room magazine, Joyland, Lit Hub, and Medium, and her plays have been produced in Toronto, where she currently lives.Hannah Giorgis is a writer who splits her time between Brooklyn, Washington, DC, and Addis Ababa. The daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, she is a staff writer at the Atlantic. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the Lifted Brow, and Pitchfork.Lelissa Girma is a writer who has lived in Addis Ababa his entire life. He has worked as a columnist and contributor to several local newspapers. He has published five books in Amharic, three of which are collections of short stories.Meron Hadero was born in Addis Ababa and immigrated to the United States when she was a child. Her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, the Iowa Review, the New York Times Book Review, ZYZZYVA, and others. She has previously been a fellow at Yaddo, the Ragdale Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and is currently a 2019–2020 Steinbeck Fellow.Solomon Hailemariam was born and raised in Addis Ababa. He is the author of a number of works including Love and Anxiety, The Search, The Priest and His Son, Once the Climax Is Over, None of Your Business, and The Young Crusader. He is the president of PEN International’s Ethiopia Centre and has taught at Addis Ababa University and New Generation University College. He was the recipient of the inaugural Burt Award for African Literature.Maaza Mengiste is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Scholar Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Arts Writers Grant Program. Her debut novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, was selected by the Guardian as one of the ten best contemporary African books and was named one of the best books of 2010 by the Christian Science Monitor and the Boston Globe. Her second novel, The Shadow King, was published in September 2019.Cheryl Moskowitz (translator) is a US-born poet, novelist, and educator living in London. She has been producing English translations of the poems and stories of Bewketu Seyoum since 2007; they have been published in World Literature Today, Prairie Schooner, the Manhattan Review, and Modern Poetry in Translation. In the UK she runs projects for Creative Translation in the Classroom. Her own books include the poetry collection The Girl Is Smiling and the novel Wyoming Trail.Adam Reta is a short story writer and novelist. He published his debut collection of short stories in the mideighties and published his second short story collection, Mahlet, in 1989. Since then he has authored five short story collections and four novels, including the 932-page opus Yesenebet qelemat. He was born in Addis Ababa West and currently resides in Canada.Hewan Semon (translator) is a student of Ethiopian history.Bewketu Seyoum is an Ethiopian poet, novelist, and essayist who was born in Mankusa in 1980. He attended Addis Ababa University where he studied psychology. Seyoum is the author of four volumes of poetry, two novels, two collections of short fiction, and numerous essays. He is currently a writer in residence and research scholar at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.Mahtem Shiferraw is a writer and visual artist from Ethiopia and Eritrea. Her work has appeared in Callaloo, Prairie Schooner, Poets.org, the 2River View, Luna Luna Magazine, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and Numéro Cinq. She received the Sillerman Prize for African Poets for her poetry collection Fuchsia, and has written two more collections, Behind Walls & Glass and Your Body Is War. She currently teaches at Pacific University’s low-residency program.Teferi Nigussie Tafa is a prominent Oromo novelist, scholar, and filmmaker. He was born in Arsi, Bekoji. He is the author of the award-winning collection The Secret Death of Abba Gada, and has published dozens of articles in international academic journals. He has also produced films such as Qondalticha. He was an IIE-SRF visiting fellow at Norwich University in Vermont from 2017 to 2019. He is currently an adjunct professor at University of Northwestern in St. Paul, Minnesota.Linda Yohannes is an Ethiopian writer from Addis Ababa. Since discovering her love for literature and the written word as a young girl, she has written poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Prufrock magazine, Jalada Africa, Brittle Paper, BBC Radio 4, Ethiopia Insight, and is forthcoming in Transition magazine. She is passionate about Ethiopia and intends to live the rest of her life there.

Summary

A collection of intriguing noir stories, capturing the complexities of the Ethiopian city, Addis Ababa.

Foreword

• Pitching to crime focused publications, blogs, journals and podcasts in UK, European and African markets


• Paid social across Facebook, Instagram ad Google


• Noir package offering – package deal purchase of past Noir titles (Lagos and Nairobi) for gifting


• NetGalley upload with retargeting of all readers for reviews on Goodreads, Amazon and Social media platforms


• Roundtable book launch with available contributors in partnership with a renowned media organisation on YouTube Live/similar platform

Product details

• Authors: Maaza Mengiste
• Assisted by: Maaza Mengiste (Editor), Mengiste Maaza (Editor)
• Publisher: External catalogues UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 20.07.2021
• EAN: 9781913175191
• ISBN: 978-1-913175-19-1
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 210 mm x 20 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Suspense; FICTION / Crime, FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Noir, Addis Ababa, Crime and mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction