... a work of reclamation in a number of ways. For one thing, the story, which dramatizes the invasion and the tenacious Ethiopian resistance, shines a light on a conflict that has often been forgotten behind the battles of the world war that followed it. Ms. Mengiste furthermore centers on the Ethiopian women who played a vital but almost completely unrecognized role in the insurgency. But most important, The Shadow King is not a story about helpless victims of colonial conquest. Against the odds, it is written in a key of pride and exaltation, and its characters have the outsize form of national heroes ... Ms. Mengiste ambitiously stretches her canvas to include colliding perspectives ... The battle scenes—the best passages in this busy, stirring novel—also have a strongly visual, even cinematic, flair.

... lyrical, remarkable ... [the book] somehow manages to solve the riddle of how to sing war now. She doesn’t seek a narrow path between the straits of these artistic and ethical questions. Instead, she encompasses them in all their contradiction, laying them out in breathtakingly skillful juxtaposition ... All these chapter forms are short, if unpredictable, and the reader feels not at the whim of an experimental dictator, but in the steady hands of a master ... There’s no humor in this novel; laughter is bitter, sarcastic, mad and, just once, happy. But we come to realize that these are deliberate poetic choices — for simplicity and sublimity — as even more references to the Greeks emerge ... a surreal penultimate scene that seemed the only misstep in this majestic novel ... I forgave it because, for once, all this grandeur, all this grace, is in the service of a tale of a woman, Hirut, as indelible and compelling a hero as any I’ve read in years. This novel made me feel pity and fear, and more times than is reasonable, gave me goose bumps.

One of Mengiste’s strengths is her determination to capture not just the Ethiopian patriots’ mindset but also the invaders’ point of view ... short, crisp chapters, with writing that is by turns as succinct and precise as a military dispatch and as lyrical as a poem ... the novel burns with shame and dishonor ... Mengiste proves a careful navigator of the horrors of the past, bringing the reader close to the limits of what can be borne. It’s uncanny because at times the novel can feel as if a photographer’s filter has been placed in front of it ... Sometimes historical novelists suffer from a nervous tendency to flag their research, leading to a separation, especially in tone, between the factual and fictional. But everything in The Shadow King, whether invented or not, seems plausible ... This historical novel characterizes the past not as a faithful reproduction, a fact subjected to a photographic fixative, but rather as a negative that develops over the book’s course so that some lasting and vivid truths emerge, perhaps only hinted at in the beginning but unassailable by the end.

... stunning ... One of the thrills of the story is to witness Hirut, who is often harshly mistreated by some of her wealthier countrymen, develop into a determined and powerful person. But that is by no means the only wonder of the novel. Mengiste has said that at first she felt trapped by the need to stay true to historical facts. Luckily, she broke away from that suffocating exactitude and produced a work of fiction that is epic in reach, with brilliant borrowings from the forms of classic tragedy ... the range of her Ethiopian characters portrayed here is something closer to the truth: There are some bad actors on the side of the righteous ... Mengiste often writes lyrically, but she also writes bone-chilling descriptions of the terror and savagery of the war. The book is impossible to put down or put out of mind.

... a sprawling, unforgettable epic from an immensely talented author who's unafraid to take risks ... Hirut and Navarra eventually cross paths during the war, which leads to their emotional reunion at the book's end. It's a stunningly powerful moment, and Mengiste renders it with real honesty ⁠— there's no melodrama at all; it's a painfully human moment from which it's nearly impossible to turn away...And it's rendered all the more effective by Mengiste's gift at creating memorable characters. Hirut is unforgettable; the girl is resilient but not superhuman, vulnerable but determined not to think of herself as a victim ... The star of the novel, however, is Mengiste's gorgeous writing, which makes The Shadow King nearly impossible to put down. Mengiste has a real gift for language; her writing is powerful but never florid, gripping the reader and refusing to let go. And this, combined with her excellent sense of pacing, makes the book one of the most beautiful novels of the year. It's a brave, stunning call for the world to remember all who we've lost to senseless violence.

In addition to memorializing the centrality of women in war...The Shadow King goes a step further and masterfully illustrates how being a woman in this world is itself so often a kind of warfare ... Mengiste’s narration is fluid, moving between characters, as well as forward and backward in time ... Mengiste’s use of a shifting point of view is generous: no character is too irrelevant—or too immoral—to become momentarily central, to be given a voice ... Mengiste’s narrative defies the moralistic view that could so easily be applied to this conflict. Instead, she emphasizes the similarities between characters’ experiences, and the constancy of suffering ... For Mengiste’s characters, escape is made possible by light and by shadow. Sunlight vividly fills almost every scene ... Mengiste uses this polarity of light and shade not as a clichéd moral about good and evil, but rather as an acknowledgment that every human body is a site of war, of internal conflict, of a division between disparate selves that cannot unify.

At play in The Shadow King...are two motifs: a paean to Ethiopia’s real-life yet unsung female soldiers, and a laying bare of the abuses some of these women and girls suffered at the hands of their male spouses and comrades. Both motifs are informed by feminism, yet one proves a lot more involving than the other. In battle scenes, Mengiste lionizes Ethiopian soldiers, especially the women, at great length and in florid prose. Over and above giving her material a dated feel, this approach blurs the line between, on one hand, recognizing that the fight against the Italians is a necessity foisted upon the Ethiopians, and, on the other, viewing war as some sort of glorious crucible in which are forged men and women of valor and heroism. At the same time, the author reveals that the bane of Aster and Hirut’s existence is none other than a fellow Ethiopian, decidedly alpha male rebel commander Kidane. This adds complexity and a measure of sophistication to her character portrayals. For the most part, the two themes – immortalization of the Ethiopian women who took up arms, and unflinching examination of the brutality some were subjected to by Ethiopian men – coexist uneasily. Yet, in one respect, they complement each other. Mengiste, deepening the Kidane-as-male-obstacle-and-tormentor motif, pointedly has Hirut fantasize about killing him when she pulls the trigger on an Italian soldier with whom she comes face-to-face in battle. And when the author insinuates that the qualities that make one a good soldier might in certain instances also make one a bad man, this proves subversive precisely because so much of her tale is taken up with exalting Ethiopian soldiers.

... exuberant ... Mengiste’s compelling novel draws a direct line between the resistance against the Italian invasion and the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie four decades later.

... monumental ... Mengiste’s extraordinary characters—shrewd Kidane, militant Aster, the enigmatic cook, narcissistic Italian commander Fucelli, conflicted photographer Ettore, elusive prostitute Fifi, even haunted Selassie—epitomize the impossibly intricate ties between humanity and monstrosity, and the unthinkable, immeasurable cost of survival.

Mengiste’s tale of Ethiopian women warriors is fascinating and tension-filled. Her prose style is to show rather than tell, with short, cinematic chapters dense with imagery and sensory detail. Descriptions of the fog of battle are exquisite and horrific, all the more remarkable for being told from a woman’s point of view. Highly recommended.

Mengiste is a master of characterization, and her characters reveal just who they are by their actions; always of interest to watch is the Italian colonel Carlo Fucelli, who is determined to win glory for himself, and a soldato named Ettore Navarra, who has learned Amharic and wants nothing more than to live a quiet life, preferably with Hirut by his side. Hirut herself is well rounded and thoroughly fascinating—and not a person to be crossed ... A memorable portrait of a people at war—a war that has long demanded recounting from an Ethiopian point of view.

Mengiste again brings heart and authenticity to a slice of Ethiopian history ... Mengiste breaks new ground in this evocative, mesmerizing account of the role of women during wartime—not just as caregivers, but as bold warriors defending their country.