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Maaza Mengiste: Of Interest to the General Public

Maaza Mengiste

Of Interest to the General Public
About a Coronation Cloak from Ethiopia

Softcover, 48 pages

Date of publication: 09.03.2026

DE

About a Coronation Cloak from Ethiopia

Inspired by the history of the 1868 Napier expedition and the burning of the palace fortress at Magdala, Of Interest to the General Public is a narration by the Ethiopian writer and photographer Maaza Mengiste. She combines photographs and text to re-imagine the journey of the stunning and elaborately made royal mantle from Ethiopia – out of battle, through fire, over mountains to cross the waters into Berlin, Germany. The oeuvre of Maaza Mengiste, who currently lives in New York, is composed from voices and stories that have been excluded, from gaps that seem inexplicable, from images, objects and places that pulse with pasts unresolved.

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Maaza Mengiste

Maaza Mengiste is a novelist, essayist, and photographer. Her debut, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, was selected by The Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African books. Her novel, The Shadow King, was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. Mengiste is founder of Project3541, a collective memory endeavour about the 1935-41 Italo-Ethiopian War, that seeks to transcend the static nature of an archive.
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