Ethiopia - Then and Now

By Andrew Pyper

May 13, 2006

There is evidence that we are still working through this historical phase of literary fashion, though one may argue that, after 9/11, there have been shifts to accommodate a related subcategory. Call it anthropological fiction. Novels that tell Westerners how people live in foreign cultures, employing details of rituals, diet, gender relations and customs to show how we might recognize parts of ourselves in the way others live. Again, the main thing here isn't story so much as pedagogy.

Canadian (and Ethiopian-born) memoirist and novelist Nega Mezlekia's second novel, The Unfortunate Marriage of Azeb Yitades, may be taken as representative of this literary subset. Winner of the Governor-General's Award for Non-Fiction for his vivid and intimate first book, Notes from the Hyena's Belly, Mezlekia here provides a glassy sea of cultural notes, translated terms, calendars for fasts and feasts, religious rites and Ethiopian etiquette, upon which floats the narrative of a rebellious young woman trying to make her way in a culture that repeatedly thwarts her striking out toward independence.

Azeb is the rebellious youngest daughter of Werknesh and Aba, the latter being the Christian parish priest in the isolated Ethiopian village of Mechara. Azeb's family includes two sisters, Genet (her older protector) and Belutu (the middle, beautiful child). Among the principal characters, there is also Etiye Hiywet, Azeb's godmother, who looks out for Azeb despite her regularly breaking the rules of her strict household (Etiye is something of a rebel herself, running a nearby bar and brothel).

The novel opens in 1961, with a prologue in which the young Azeb steals a sheep's testicle from a simmering pot. Known to be an aphrodisiac for men, testicles were restricted from female diets, as women might "assume the mannerisms of men" by eating them. But bold Azeb tastes the forbidden fruit anyway. This act of defiance marks her for life.

The first part of the novel provides separate back stories for each of the main characters before moving forward with Azeb's tumultuous life. Following this, the story exhibits how part of the change visited on Azeb is the influence of Western culture, which finds its way even to Mechara through rare fashion magazines, movies, hygiene products and, eventually, long-term American visitors with agendas of their own. The Hardings (whose daughter, Oona, Azeb soon befriends) introduce a cultural influence utterly alien to the village. But the changes they initiate alter the way people in Mechara, particularly its women, view their roles in the new, emerging society.

To its credit, Unfortunate Marriage refuses to take a firm position as to whether alterations to Ethiopian ways of life over the last 30 years of the 20th century were entirely good or entirely bad. Women were subjugated prior to the advent of liberalized, secularized shifts in the national culture, as well as afterward, albeit in different ways and according to different rules. There are moments in the book where Mezlekia strikes the perfect note that speaks the novel's sentimental attachment to the way things were, while at the same time acknowledging the wish for progressive change.

What dulls the novel's overall impact, unfortunately, is the flatness of its telling. This is caused in part by the footnote-like relating of facts, but also by the prose, which seems to observe the goings-on from a chilly distance. There is too much lead-footed exposition and clichéd phrasing ("he was a sight to behold," no one "could hold a candle to her," "Hot on the heels") for the third-person narrative to find its own character. Without this, we learn what happens in the story without participating in it.

Any novel that takes on the challenge of teaching its reader facts she isn't familiar with simultaneously assumes the challenge of striking a balance between textbook and narrative. In attempting to strike this balance, The Unfortunate Marriage of Azeb Yitades only half succeeds. One can learn a great deal about Ethiopia and its recent cultural history from Mezlekia's well-researched and richly detailed novel, but this information comes at least partly at the expense of what -- and how -- we learn of its characters and events.

Andrew Pyper's most recent novel is The Wildfire Season.

A rebellious child

Werknesh had been in labour for two days and two nights when she finally conceded defeat and sought the assistance of a midwife. Having given birth to two children on her own before, she had been lulled into believing that midwives were for weaklings. Perhaps the baby inside her had grown accustomed to the warmth of her womb, or maybe the six fallow years since her last travail had narrowed her birth canal. Whatever the reason, this child couldn't be persuaded to emerge.

"This may be the baby boy you dreamt of, the midwife told Aba Yitades, the baby's father, as he chanted prayers at the doorstep.

"May your predictions come true!" he said, bowing his head a little.

"The last time a childbirth took so long, it was because they were twin boys," she went on, encouraged. Her mind raced to invent a remote village where she might have participated in such a childbirth before curiosity overcame the would-be father of a son and he asked for difficult details. . . .

The midwife was saved from her restless tongue by the heart-rending cries of the newborn. She dashed inside to join a small group of women who had gathered by the new mother's bedside, while Aba Yitade, along with a few of his male friends, waited outside as tradition required, his breath in check, until the gender of the newborn was announced by the cry of joy emanating from the birth chamber. Five ululates indicated the birth of a baby boy; three, a baby girl.

"One, two, three," the men counted in unison. They collectively gasped in hope, but no more cries were heard.

-- From The Unfortunate Marriage of Azeeb Yitades