1 00:00:08,590 --> 00:00:13,060 Hello and welcome to Big Tent. 2 00:00:13,060 --> 00:00:21,880 Live Events, the live online event series from the University of Oxford as part of the humanities cultural programme. 3 00:00:21,880 --> 00:00:28,930 This is one of the founding stones of the future. Stephen, a sportsman centre for the humanities. 4 00:00:28,930 --> 00:00:31,150 My name is Ellika Burma. 5 00:00:31,150 --> 00:00:40,900 I'm a professor of world literature in English in the English faculty at Oxford, and I have a particular interest in African fiction. 6 00:00:40,900 --> 00:00:47,290 So it's a great pleasure for me to chair today's session. The big event. 7 00:00:47,290 --> 00:00:57,160 Big Tent Live Events series brings together researchers and students from across different disciplines in the humanities and more broadly. 8 00:00:57,160 --> 00:01:03,340 We explore some of humanity's important subjects and we ask questions about areas such as the environment, 9 00:01:03,340 --> 00:01:11,200 medical, humanities, history of disease, as well as celebrating storytelling, music, song and identity. 10 00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:13,410 As we're doing today. 11 00:01:13,410 --> 00:01:22,320 We're bringing you this event online while we're all keeping our distance and we hope everyone is feeling safe and well during this pretty tough time. 12 00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:26,310 We look forward to seeing you all again in person really soon. 13 00:01:26,310 --> 00:01:33,570 And we look forward to hosting you at some big tent events as part of the humanities cultural programme. 14 00:01:33,570 --> 00:01:43,320 Everyone is welcome in this big tent and we hope to explore ideas together with you, as we're doing this evening. 15 00:01:43,320 --> 00:01:47,640 We're really grateful for your ongoing support and for your involvement. 16 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:49,920 All of you out there listening. 17 00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:59,770 And we're very grateful also to the participants who have given their time and words as we've come together here online. 18 00:01:59,770 --> 00:02:06,010 If you the audience would like to put any questions to your speakers during this event tonight, 19 00:02:06,010 --> 00:02:11,380 please pop them in the comments box on the YouTube feed. 20 00:02:11,380 --> 00:02:19,750 We encourage you to submit these as early as possible so that we have time to answer as many as possible in the Q&A at the end. 21 00:02:19,750 --> 00:02:24,220 We'll leave about 20 minutes for Q&A at the end of this hour. 22 00:02:24,220 --> 00:02:31,700 But first, we're going to have a reading from today's featured author, Mausam and Day. 23 00:02:31,700 --> 00:02:36,760 Are we going to have some discussion with our three panellists who I'll introduce in a moment? 24 00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:46,120 And Muslim and guest is featuring today is reading from and talking about her book, The Shadow King. 25 00:02:46,120 --> 00:02:53,470 So it gives me great pleasure now to turn to Marzo minister, our visiting writer. 26 00:02:53,470 --> 00:02:59,990 It's a great honour to to host you on this big tent event. 27 00:02:59,990 --> 00:03:05,380 Mausam and This Day is the author of the novels Beneath the Lion's Gaze, 28 00:03:05,380 --> 00:03:10,930 which was named as one of the 10 best contemporary African books by The Guardian. 29 00:03:10,930 --> 00:03:16,440 And also of today's book, The Shadow King. 30 00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:21,480 The Shadow King is a finalist for the L.A. Times books PRISE. 31 00:03:21,480 --> 00:03:32,580 It's a New York Times notable book of twenty nineteen and one of times must read books of twenty nineteen Moslem and guest. 32 00:03:32,580 --> 00:03:37,500 It is the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. 33 00:03:37,500 --> 00:03:42,270 The premiere Yale Punta and Fellowships from the Fulbright Scholar Programme, 34 00:03:42,270 --> 00:03:51,960 the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, and also the Literate to a house Zürich. 35 00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:59,090 His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Granta and many other publications. 36 00:03:59,090 --> 00:04:05,060 It's great to have you here, Mozza. It's wonderful to be here tonight. 37 00:04:05,060 --> 00:04:11,390 We also welcome our three panellists beha new gig s.A. 38 00:04:11,390 --> 00:04:19,670 Professor Richard Reid and Professor CIHI Barnett Selassie joining us from different parts of the world, it's a truly global event. 39 00:04:19,670 --> 00:04:29,550 This I'm going to introduce the three panellists in the order in which they will be responding to Mozambique estás work. 40 00:04:29,550 --> 00:04:35,430 First, then Bill, take a guest, say he was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 41 00:04:35,430 --> 00:04:40,680 and is now studying humanities, as at Kenyon College in the United States. 42 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:50,010 He's currently on a year abroad studying English literature at Exeter University and along with Koranda, Harris recently interviewed Mozza. 43 00:04:50,010 --> 00:05:00,540 My guest stay for Africa in words. Professor Richard Reid is a historian of modern Africa, focussing on the 19th and 20th centuries. 44 00:05:00,540 --> 00:05:09,570 And he's based here at Oxford University. He has particular interests in the culture and practise of warfare in the modern period. 45 00:05:09,570 --> 00:05:18,790 And for that reason, he is very well suited to speaking to Muslim and guest as novel today. 46 00:05:18,790 --> 00:05:23,290 Professor to hide behind harness, Selassie taught social anthropology, 47 00:05:23,290 --> 00:05:30,700 gender and development studies in universities in Ethiopia, the United States, the U.K. and now Ireland. 48 00:05:30,700 --> 00:05:37,030 She has published on Ethiopian warrior hood and gender issues in Ethiopia. 49 00:05:37,030 --> 00:05:42,520 So a fantastically well suited panel, I think. 50 00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:53,470 So how are we going to do this across the next 20, 25 minutes or so is that I'm now going to invite Marzin a guest day to read from the Shadow King. 51 00:05:53,470 --> 00:06:03,280 Tell us a little bit about it. And then I'm going to turn to the three panellists and ask them to give short responses to that reading, 52 00:06:03,280 --> 00:06:08,020 and then we'll have some discussion before we open up. Thanks, Melissa. 53 00:06:08,020 --> 00:06:14,320 Thanks very much. Thank you, America. It is such a pleasure to be here. 54 00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:23,540 And before I start, I just want to say hello to everyone who is tuning in, including my two little nephews. 55 00:06:23,540 --> 00:06:27,010 There's maybe skipping homeschooling right now to watch this. 56 00:06:27,010 --> 00:06:31,900 So thank you. Look at San Gabriel. I hope you're taking notes. 57 00:06:31,900 --> 00:06:44,080 I'm going to read from from my novel The Shadow King, which is set in in the early in 1935. 58 00:06:44,080 --> 00:06:50,890 It begins with the early days just before Mussolini invades Ethiopia. 59 00:06:50,890 --> 00:07:01,210 And I became interested in this history because I grew up hearing these stories of this war where Ethiopians were not supposed to win, 60 00:07:01,210 --> 00:07:08,380 but somehow they did and defeated this Italian European army. 61 00:07:08,380 --> 00:07:16,540 My research in this led me to women, and it was not an immediate discovery. 62 00:07:16,540 --> 00:07:31,030 It took a few years before I started finding some women who who broke tradition maybe and joined in the army to fight alongside the men. 63 00:07:31,030 --> 00:07:40,810 I became fascinated with this history, and I wanted to imagine in my novel what a story about war would look like if it's told from this 64 00:07:40,810 --> 00:07:51,310 perspective of women and how might a woman remember war and how might she be remembered after the war. 65 00:07:51,310 --> 00:07:58,750 So I had one of my main characters is named, I said, and another character is named. 66 00:07:58,750 --> 00:08:07,240 He wrote, and I'm going to read a section from very early on in the novel When the War Has Broken Out. 67 00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:17,170 The women are following the men cooking, collecting water, doing the things that women traditionally did during warfare in Ethiopia. 68 00:08:17,170 --> 00:08:25,270 But as there has other ideas as well about the role that they could play in this war. 69 00:08:25,270 --> 00:08:33,320 So I am I will leave it at that and I will read this brief section. 70 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:38,290 US. There is a glorious figure astride her horse, Boonah. 71 00:08:38,290 --> 00:08:48,160 She has loosened her braids and thick strands of hair, fall against her neck and spread like a dark curtain around her sunlit face. 72 00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:52,900 She snaps the animal to a trot across the hip. The crest of the hill. 73 00:08:52,900 --> 00:09:00,710 Her cape fanning around her finger. The golden clasp trapping flints of afternoon light. 74 00:09:00,710 --> 00:09:07,490 Women, she shouts. Sisters, are you listening to me? 75 00:09:07,490 --> 00:09:10,160 Her voice rises into the sky. 76 00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:19,730 A blade slicing through the valley below, startling the women from their tasks, forcing them to lift their heads and turn in her direction. 77 00:09:19,730 --> 00:09:25,360 Sisters. Are you ready for what's to come? 78 00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:35,440 Ethiopia's gifted us Mardie will sing of this day for years of how the women drop their baskets and their jugs, 79 00:09:35,440 --> 00:09:39,250 how they push away their blooms and piles of wool. 80 00:09:39,250 --> 00:09:47,950 They rise to their feet nearly in unison, unaware of their own glory and lift their faces toward us. 81 00:09:47,950 --> 00:10:00,810 There a voice. That they paused long enough to listen to the soft tap of distant gunfire is a detail that the songs will repeat again and again. 82 00:10:00,810 --> 00:10:06,480 The musicians will make of the women's frowns, a forewarning of what's to come. 83 00:10:06,480 --> 00:10:14,070 The singers will use the women's gasps and exclamations as signs of their growing strength. 84 00:10:14,070 --> 00:10:20,670 One as Marie after the next will sing these words as they play their Marcinko. 85 00:10:20,670 --> 00:10:29,520 That first battle cry was already forming in the women's throats, us there knew she just needed a way to usher it out. 86 00:10:29,520 --> 00:10:40,870 The women were ready but did not know it. There were bullets to be made and gunpowder to mix and rifles to load, an enemy's to shoot. 87 00:10:40,870 --> 00:10:45,820 Women, those who can make bullets come to me. 88 00:10:45,820 --> 00:10:53,080 Upstairs, voice carries across the valley before breaking into echoes and scattering into the horizon. 89 00:10:53,080 --> 00:11:02,190 She is one woman. She is many women. She is all the sound that exists in the world. 90 00:11:02,190 --> 00:11:07,980 And I will stop there with that. 91 00:11:07,980 --> 00:11:21,060 I wanted to read this section very briefly because I think my interest as a novelist in this history beyond the personal connexions that I have to it. 92 00:11:21,060 --> 00:11:28,560 I was asking questions about history and what gets remembered and what makes history. 93 00:11:28,560 --> 00:11:33,690 How do certain people and events get remembered and others become forgotten? 94 00:11:33,690 --> 00:11:39,660 What makes collective memory? And how does collective memory then become history? 95 00:11:39,660 --> 00:11:48,390 Who does the telling? And I it I know in history the gaps are inevitable. 96 00:11:48,390 --> 00:11:53,640 And where did the inevitable gaps even in the retelling of this? 97 00:11:53,640 --> 00:11:59,670 As a novelist, I challenged myself to try to move into one of those gaps, which is women. 98 00:11:59,670 --> 00:12:04,080 And everything in this book begins with women and girls. 99 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:12,690 And I wanted to imagine what history would look like if I told it through a girl and through a woman. 100 00:12:12,690 --> 00:12:20,610 And so I will I will leave it at that and I will let the other panellists respond or ask questions. 101 00:12:20,610 --> 00:12:26,640 Thanks so very much. Massive, incredibly powerful reading this so much there to think about, 102 00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:34,320 including the making of history and song and collective memory and the role of women in war. 103 00:12:34,320 --> 00:12:42,900 So there are a number of threads for us to pick up. And so in that light, I'd like to turn to. 104 00:12:42,900 --> 00:12:48,060 Behind you, behind it guest say. And hear your response. 105 00:12:48,060 --> 00:12:54,600 You've already responded so powerfully to this novel. And we're very keen to to to hear more from you. 106 00:12:54,600 --> 00:13:04,070 Now. Thank you, Ali. And before all, I want to start by saying I'm very humbled and honoured to be part of this panel, 107 00:13:04,070 --> 00:13:08,840 it's interesting that I read from the earlier chapters of the book because I was also 108 00:13:08,840 --> 00:13:13,040 thinking more about the beginning of the book when I was thinking of this panel. 109 00:13:13,040 --> 00:13:17,810 And as much as the book is about one, you know, empowering women, 110 00:13:17,810 --> 00:13:25,250 I think Myers's work is a very wonderful piece of literature that really shows us the individuality of war. 111 00:13:25,250 --> 00:13:33,410 War is a very complex and it's made up of layers of emotions and stories that may not necessarily be told once the war is passed. 112 00:13:33,410 --> 00:13:39,170 But in that specific historical time for in this case from the nineteen thirty five to nineteen forty one, 113 00:13:39,170 --> 00:13:42,680 there are people who have lost their very close, intimate families. 114 00:13:42,680 --> 00:13:51,860 There are people who've managed to fall in love in the midst of war. Is all this complexity that literature, I believe, has the power to lay out. 115 00:13:51,860 --> 00:14:01,370 And you know, in terms of making the characters, the setting and the narrative arc purposefully bringing us closer to this forgotten stories, 116 00:14:01,370 --> 00:14:06,710 which also is what the Asmara is as much as us reading just all this actually do. 117 00:14:06,710 --> 00:14:12,830 They are the histories that usually are not in the textbooks because they are very Manute and they are very personal. 118 00:14:12,830 --> 00:14:21,220 And I would like to mention another piece of a para three lines from Chapter eight, which is on page 18, 119 00:14:21,220 --> 00:14:27,100 where a key Danny and Hero Kid and his wife have this interesting conversation because 120 00:14:27,100 --> 00:14:33,890 Gadhafi's wife has found the rifle that he has been hiding in the household and kidney sayes. 121 00:14:33,890 --> 00:14:38,340 When you hear it insists that Guidone gives birth a gun, you you go. 122 00:14:38,340 --> 00:14:42,710 The says Haloti a key dances. I need this gun. 123 00:14:42,710 --> 00:14:48,140 We're going to war and we need all the weapons we can get. These Italians have many more than we do. 124 00:14:48,140 --> 00:14:50,790 It's very interesting for me because, you know, 125 00:14:50,790 --> 00:14:59,570 this is this is a very clever characterisation and setup that already tells us how even though neither Hirut nor Kidney nor his wife, 126 00:14:59,570 --> 00:15:03,490 in fact, everybody in the household do not want Ethiopia to be colonised. 127 00:15:03,490 --> 00:15:10,100 He does not want to let go that rifle because that rifle is a symbol of her attachment to her deceased family. 128 00:15:10,100 --> 00:15:14,180 And that's that is her entry way to the memories of her father. 129 00:15:14,180 --> 00:15:23,600 So it's very fascinating how without agreement or without romanticising the novel Marza bring us closer to this pixels of a big picture. 130 00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:28,500 We call it, you know, struggle to independence. Thank you. 131 00:15:28,500 --> 00:15:38,550 Thank thanks so much. Behind you. I'm going to take a grab bag of responses first before asking Mozza to respond to that. 132 00:15:38,550 --> 00:15:45,780 I'm going to draw in the responses from the other two panellists is that it came up. 133 00:15:45,780 --> 00:15:50,910 So I'd like to turn to Richard Richard Reid now. Thanks very much. 134 00:15:50,910 --> 00:15:59,690 Behind you. That was. I love the thing about pixels. I agree that very sharp focus on specificities. 135 00:15:59,690 --> 00:16:05,650 Richard. Yeah. Thank you for that. 136 00:16:05,650 --> 00:16:09,650 Absolutely wonderful. Why you referred. 137 00:16:09,650 --> 00:16:17,160 My first response is really envy. I used to think that archaeologists have all the fun. 138 00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:27,340 I decided that novelists have more fun than that. But I am just coming back to your reference to inevitable gaps. 139 00:16:27,340 --> 00:16:36,320 And I think that this is really what what works of the imagination, but rooted in serious research. 140 00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:46,490 Do and's writers like you are able to go to places that historians have failed to do. 141 00:16:46,490 --> 00:16:52,250 Or in some cases, you have to tread and's. 142 00:16:52,250 --> 00:17:06,170 I'm very struck in particular by your focus on on the role of women in the study of war in Africa and indeed, in fact the study of war everywhere. 143 00:17:06,170 --> 00:17:16,570 I think we can safely say it's a very Obejas centric affair. It's usually written by Men Forum, and there are some notable exceptions unfroze. 144 00:17:16,570 --> 00:17:22,820 Sure. Historians working on more Africa that do have methodological challenges. 145 00:17:22,820 --> 00:17:33,390 It is often difficult to find the kind of source material that enable us to reconstruct women's experiences in war, even in relatively modern war. 146 00:17:33,390 --> 00:17:48,640 That aside of the 19th century. So a work like this, we the mix makes an enormous contribution, I think, to our understanding of. 147 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:55,820 With experience of of conflict, which just says is is very complex. 148 00:17:55,820 --> 00:18:02,600 Time is short and I have so many other responses I could offer, but I would just say one more thing, 149 00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:10,430 and that is that your focus on the thirty five thirty six inflation is is is so valuable. 150 00:18:10,430 --> 00:18:14,460 This is a war about which we still do not understand a great deal. 151 00:18:14,460 --> 00:18:19,240 Well, we certainly we understand the politics of the context, 152 00:18:19,240 --> 00:18:26,090 and that's usually understood in terms of time, colonialism and indeed in international relations. 153 00:18:26,090 --> 00:18:32,720 Abyssinian crisis becomes a little blip on the way to Europe's world war. 154 00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:44,390 But it's wonderful to have this kind of granular insight into an Ethiopian experience and not one that's kind of dominated by Europeans. 155 00:18:44,390 --> 00:18:54,020 Thanks very much, Richard. I'd not like to bring in also Ed to hide behind his Selassie. 156 00:18:54,020 --> 00:18:59,400 So the hive coming in from Ireland. Thank you. 157 00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:10,230 I'm honoured to be invited to this pundits. And thank you very much, Mizar, for bringing in this wonderful topic and turnover. 158 00:19:10,230 --> 00:19:18,780 I have been. I grew up in the 50s and 60s when all the talk was about persistence. 159 00:19:18,780 --> 00:19:25,530 I grew up with a resistance history. I grew up with my mother and grandmother, all of them in the resistance. 160 00:19:25,530 --> 00:19:40,050 And that evoked the gun as part of a very important decision to put this woman because the gun traditionally Ethiopia was access to your land. 161 00:19:40,050 --> 00:19:44,940 You have a gun. You fight at the battle field and you have access to your gun. 162 00:19:44,940 --> 00:19:50,610 That's a very important, critical point. And that it's as much thinks this gun. 163 00:19:50,610 --> 00:19:56,920 This was a very important military leader takes this gun from this little girl. 164 00:19:56,920 --> 00:20:03,300 You know what happened when the war was declared? Titus Lessie said no woman is to come to the battlefield. 165 00:20:03,300 --> 00:20:11,280 Europeans have told him that women are not the guns of battlefield. Ethiopian traditionally thought no women were fighters. 166 00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:17,670 So he said, no, no woman has the guns about the. Give your guns to the men because we're short of guns. 167 00:20:17,670 --> 00:20:22,520 That's a beautiful metaphor you created. That is the gun. 168 00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:26,310 And that does my thinking with a gun. I enjoyed that one. 169 00:20:26,310 --> 00:20:33,860 But then the mobilisation, the mobilisation was it was the beat of drums and everybody was up in arms. 170 00:20:33,860 --> 00:20:41,940 They were really men rebelled in 1935, brought their guns, suits them and the highest less. 171 00:20:41,940 --> 00:20:50,220 You have to calm them down in the provinces so they can choose a better because a woman's they have the drumbeats and the mobilisation. 172 00:20:50,220 --> 00:20:57,770 They all cancel about it because they knew that. If they don't fight, they lost their lands. 173 00:20:57,770 --> 00:21:01,860 Their access to land was at stake. So that's very important. 174 00:21:01,860 --> 00:21:06,040 So traditionally, men and women were fighters he evokes. 175 00:21:06,040 --> 00:21:11,720 That's the truth. That beautiful point in history when women were said, don't go to the battlefield, 176 00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:17,130 that is beautifully brought in and the back and then the mobilisation, 177 00:21:17,130 --> 00:21:24,990 the moving to the battlefield became a little bit disoriented where the women were relegated in the novel. 178 00:21:24,990 --> 00:21:39,930 That is true. Didn't could send nurses because women were warriors and the wounded were looked after by their own colleagues. 179 00:21:39,930 --> 00:21:42,810 Men and women were looked after in the bush. 180 00:21:42,810 --> 00:21:51,960 They were taken away, hidden away and shifted in the population that has mobilised the population that does not mobilise, looked after the wounded. 181 00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:56,370 That was how the guerrilla was set up and they were able to fight. 182 00:21:56,370 --> 00:22:00,680 But you then have to simplify it. You couldn't go into all that debate. 183 00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:13,620 We set that a wonderful story. What also got a little bit disorienting with the rivalry for this month between Usted and Hild. 184 00:22:13,620 --> 00:22:20,930 Wow. I said it demoness, you managed that then, was it, or the rivalry? 185 00:22:20,930 --> 00:22:34,220 Men and women like to be two countries on notice of this leader because they would be given rewards of guns or fighters of land, et cetera, et cetera. 186 00:22:34,220 --> 00:22:43,620 And that rivalry was expressed in the ways that was kind of enjoyable to ordinary reader who doesn't know anything about legislative history. 187 00:22:43,620 --> 00:22:54,440 So that's as that's as they call it. But I thought, OK, that I would raise that and put up that that we men and women, Rivaldo, were never fixed. 188 00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:58,510 The actual warriors themselves were actually very disciplined. 189 00:22:58,510 --> 00:23:05,530 And I respect the men and women. They did get married because they fell in love and got married. 190 00:23:05,530 --> 00:23:11,120 That was it. And you also pointed out in your book that it was wonderful. So that is brought out nicely. 191 00:23:11,120 --> 00:23:24,020 But the whole metaphore of this small community of warriors up in their Simen mountains, resisting the Taliban advance, sneaking behind the lines. 192 00:23:24,020 --> 00:23:27,950 Oh, that's as beautiful as where we defeated the surprises as a felon. 193 00:23:27,950 --> 00:23:39,400 Now, for Manderson's, the lethal activities done on the bodies of this italia's wisdom is no, it's expositional. 194 00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:44,120 But this war is coming up. It's coming in large numbers. 195 00:23:44,120 --> 00:23:50,570 You just see one month expects the war that doesn't so beautifully put will place. 196 00:23:50,570 --> 00:24:00,170 I didn't. You have done a wonderful way of portraying not just the mobilisation and the move to the battlefields, 197 00:24:00,170 --> 00:24:06,510 the much the battlefield, but also the background to the actual guerrilla warfare. 198 00:24:06,510 --> 00:24:11,870 You've portrayed it beautifully. I think I liked that the Getty had to be presented that way. 199 00:24:11,870 --> 00:24:19,430 What is it? Thanks. I think it was unnecessary. 200 00:24:19,430 --> 00:24:23,110 Thank you. Thanks. Thanks so much, sir. Hi. 201 00:24:23,110 --> 00:24:27,200 A number of different pathways to pursue that. 202 00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:35,930 I do very much agree with you about the very interesting metaphore of the women warriors. 203 00:24:35,930 --> 00:24:44,090 But it's time to turn to you, Mother, and and to hear your responses. 204 00:24:44,090 --> 00:24:52,790 We've got a lot better about pixelation the wonderful pixelation of your work and the building of an historical record, 205 00:24:52,790 --> 00:24:59,990 especially where women's voices and women's contribution has often been overlooked. 206 00:24:59,990 --> 00:25:11,370 And then also this question from CIHI is experience of the continuing involvement of the women in that time. 207 00:25:11,370 --> 00:25:17,260 Yeah, I think. And thank you to Hanno and and Richard and doctors. 208 00:25:17,260 --> 00:25:22,800 High, the your responses have been really wonderful. 209 00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:31,920 I you know, I think what's interesting to me, if we take and maybe if we think about what Berhanu started with, 210 00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:42,090 which was talking about the Widger grabbed the gun, which is also what talk with the doctors I was referring to, that you if you have that gun, 211 00:25:42,090 --> 00:25:49,320 that means you can fight and you will fight and you can protect your land and protect yourself. 212 00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:54,660 And I I thought of that gun as a as a metaphor for and for hero. 213 00:25:54,660 --> 00:25:59,970 It's also the last thing that her father gave her before he died. 214 00:25:59,970 --> 00:26:14,230 So it contains so many other things. And I, I have been curious throughout my research and reading in the archives, doctors are high. 215 00:26:14,230 --> 00:26:22,800 You and I both know Sandrone thrilled to see who was my advisor in Italy when I was doing this research. 216 00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:33,960 And, you know, I was it was not until the late 90s that the archives in Rome of the fascist period were found. 217 00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:38,700 They were in a basement of the library in an unmarked box. They were not catalogued. 218 00:26:38,700 --> 00:26:45,270 So if you can imagine. And then it went how many decades before this? 219 00:26:45,270 --> 00:26:53,730 And I come along and I'm in Rome in 2010 trying to find more of this information and talking to people. 220 00:26:53,730 --> 00:26:57,960 But the women were not the first things that I came across. 221 00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:02,970 It was, of course, the stories of the stories that the Italians saved. 222 00:27:02,970 --> 00:27:07,680 The stories that the Italians told them. 223 00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:11,970 Even in the stories that I heard from my family members, 224 00:27:11,970 --> 00:27:17,580 it was not until I was writing this book and I was nearly done that I discovered my great 225 00:27:17,580 --> 00:27:27,580 grandmother had fought for her gun and went to mobilise exactly like you were saying. 226 00:27:27,580 --> 00:27:32,470 But that was not a history that was written down. 227 00:27:32,470 --> 00:27:37,330 That was something that was told to me after the book was almost done. 228 00:27:37,330 --> 00:27:47,950 And I had not heard that story until then. And so I you know, I became very curious about this this gap maybe. 229 00:27:47,950 --> 00:27:58,810 Richard, you were also talking about the gap between what's history and what storytelling and where do they merge. 230 00:27:58,810 --> 00:28:04,400 And I started looking once I realised that there's something else happening here. 231 00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:16,930 What what else can I do? And these are where the photographs that I use in the book became very important to me as another device of documentation. 232 00:28:16,930 --> 00:28:27,010 But also, I always I felt that the photographs that Italians took always captured within the frame something much more than they intended. 233 00:28:27,010 --> 00:28:33,700 They didn't understand what they were looking at half the time when they when they snapped the camera. 234 00:28:33,700 --> 00:28:41,610 So I began to reimagine photographs as another way of talking about war. 235 00:28:41,610 --> 00:28:55,050 And I can leave that. Can can we possibly pick up on some of those challenges between stories that face us in 236 00:28:55,050 --> 00:29:01,500 the gap between storytelling on the one hand and history making on on the other moms? 237 00:29:01,500 --> 00:29:12,660 I was very struck by this gesture that you made. You know this because this sort of gap in kind of filling filling that in with story, with memory. 238 00:29:12,660 --> 00:29:21,900 I was also very struck in your reading where you talked about the chants and the gasps of the women, the sounds that they make in war, 239 00:29:21,900 --> 00:29:32,070 feeding into the oral narrative, the kind of, you know, the the kinds of stories that people in the community would be telling in the future. 240 00:29:32,070 --> 00:29:41,670 I wondered if the panel wound to pick up on on that really big question about the relationship between storytelling and history. 241 00:29:41,670 --> 00:29:51,840 I think that, you know, what the novel does and this novel in particular is is so vividly fill in that gap. 242 00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:59,840 So maybe we can pick up on on some of the things that really struck us about about the actual storytelling here behind you. 243 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:06,070 And I know this is something that that you've thought about. Thank you. 244 00:30:06,070 --> 00:30:15,010 Again, this is this is also something that came up in the interview with Marza, and one of the things she underlined is that I called her own words. 245 00:30:15,010 --> 00:30:21,640 History itself is not linear. It has different narratives colliding, intersecting and joining in which lives cups. 246 00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,070 And I would like to suggest two ways of thinking this, 247 00:30:24,070 --> 00:30:29,850 because there's these two words I always liked from my chemistry class called malleability and ductility. 248 00:30:29,850 --> 00:30:37,390 Malleable is how something a material change under pressure, but WQ is how it goes into a thin sheet or becomes a wire. 249 00:30:37,390 --> 00:30:45,040 And I think the war itself, as portrayed in the Borg or as I have heard it growing up, was a lot of pressure on Ethiopia. 250 00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:49,720 It was a sudden pressure. They were not equipped for it. It was more than they can hold. 251 00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:57,670 So there was, of course, a lot of rearrangement within the communities that had to be made like a sink, like a material would fall under a pressure. 252 00:30:57,670 --> 00:31:08,500 So the story of the shadow king, basically, if we look at the form itself that it begins from 1935 and suddenly shifts to nineteen seventy four, 253 00:31:08,500 --> 00:31:13,300 and then he also comes back again, but also the chorus and the photos are embedded in between. 254 00:31:13,300 --> 00:31:22,300 We can see that things are the shape is changing because the history had this the way we remember it or the way it happened was not as linear, 255 00:31:22,300 --> 00:31:27,910 was not as precise as we may say. Oh Julius, Ethiopians defeated a tax. 256 00:31:27,910 --> 00:31:39,100 But then the problem is that when the history was told, it was deputised into a single wire, which is it was a male champion tail. 257 00:31:39,100 --> 00:31:46,630 So someone like me who grew up in there now, who was born in late nineteen hundreds or grew up in the early 2000s, 258 00:31:46,630 --> 00:31:53,040 have not heard even a single vaine history class saying, OK, women were part of the war. 259 00:31:53,040 --> 00:32:00,850 The fathers he went was there were women who were to whisper or kind of infiltrates the camps and bring out stories from the Italians. 260 00:32:00,850 --> 00:32:06,190 So there is definitely sort of a mistake that has been done in telling the story. 261 00:32:06,190 --> 00:32:17,140 It's not a full picture. And I think my eyes as work is very intentional in beginning the story with Harold and ending it with her in the 1974, 262 00:32:17,140 --> 00:32:25,030 because we started with the with the people who lacked from the history, we learnt the history with a pixellated way. 263 00:32:25,030 --> 00:32:30,490 And then we come back to the people who deserve this story back again. Thank you. 264 00:32:30,490 --> 00:32:38,580 Thanks, honey. Richard, how about from your perspective as a as a historian on that question? 265 00:32:38,580 --> 00:32:44,200 Yeah, it's it's a it's a huge it's a huge issue. 266 00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:50,180 I mean, history. History of discipline, this is there is is a very big church. 267 00:32:50,180 --> 00:33:03,700 It's all sorts of. People who are poor see all sorts of different methodologies and regard history in various ways. 268 00:33:03,700 --> 00:33:10,840 Historians often use storytelling as a source for actual history. 269 00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:17,140 And I think we need to kind of maybe revisits that relationship. 270 00:33:17,140 --> 00:33:26,110 And this is partly true in the African context. And I think I think I certainly have been guilty of it in the past where you whereby 271 00:33:26,110 --> 00:33:32,710 you don't necessarily recognise a story as something necessarily of value in itself. 272 00:33:32,710 --> 00:33:40,500 You see it as as a piece of evidence which contributes to the writing of history, which is something much pure, 273 00:33:40,500 --> 00:33:49,930 a much bigger and much more comprehensive and unjust to kind of piggyback on on something four hundred is just alluded to in war, 274 00:33:49,930 --> 00:33:54,640 especially at distinction is is blurred. 275 00:33:54,640 --> 00:34:05,730 In fact, in the end, you could see the people write histories of war and unteach war in a kind of comprehensive ways in ways that make sense. 276 00:34:05,730 --> 00:34:15,130 And of course, this is the problem is that history is an attempt to impose order on the chaos of the past, but in war. 277 00:34:15,130 --> 00:34:20,440 The people who are called up in wars, all all that is true is story. 278 00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:24,070 Storytelling is the only thing that matters. 279 00:34:24,070 --> 00:34:32,840 Later on, historians will say, you know, we understand the diplomatic reasons why Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in October 1935. 280 00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:39,130 We know the impact, not least last Thursday. Wrong, not losing so much, 281 00:34:39,130 --> 00:34:48,820 so much is lost in the writing and in the construction of of of of medical histories that certainly increasingly 282 00:34:48,820 --> 00:34:59,260 I would encourage people to go back to the idea that everything begins and everything ends in storytelling. 283 00:34:59,260 --> 00:35:04,860 And, you know, that's easier be more easily done in certain fields than in others. 284 00:35:04,860 --> 00:35:10,480 But I think in in studies of our understanding of war. 285 00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:14,800 We need to we need to get to grips with the fact that in many ways, 286 00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:26,310 the big history historians aspire under our age to do is in a sense often a red herring to the people who were actually involved, 287 00:35:26,310 --> 00:35:31,070 who were caught up in violence. I'm talking myself out of a job. 288 00:35:31,070 --> 00:35:35,200 Let's say hi, would you. 289 00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:43,120 Would you chime in with that? Those those real challenges of history writing. 290 00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:53,670 And that way in which story is kind of this is where it begins and ends, really history. 291 00:35:53,670 --> 00:36:02,580 All that is true. That's what you see after nineteen forty one in Ethiopia. 292 00:36:02,580 --> 00:36:13,080 It was necessary to emphasise that this Nazi and the resistance fighters were men who defended their country. 293 00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:20,090 And now new army is needed. A new civilisation, morality is needed, and therefore it's not really important. 294 00:36:20,090 --> 00:36:32,060 Look about that. It's Liston's period. Or women in war are symbolised by women in the army or or on the battlefield better. 295 00:36:32,060 --> 00:36:41,400 Well, you know what? We grew up in all girls schools because all good schools were organised to make us like these little girls. 296 00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:46,900 We got all these books on their heads walking straight. We have to be really like you in Victoria. 297 00:36:46,900 --> 00:36:50,590 We we men under orders had to be forgotten. 298 00:36:50,590 --> 00:36:55,650 They left behind. And we had to discover its reasons afterwards. 299 00:36:55,650 --> 00:36:59,430 What was going on was the women, because for me, 300 00:36:59,430 --> 00:37:11,100 there was so much discontinuity between what my mother and her mother and my other parents were talking about and what we were being. 301 00:37:11,100 --> 00:37:16,050 Thought to think about lessons in the schools. What is this about? 302 00:37:16,050 --> 00:37:24,570 They were running around in the fields fighting battles and where she had to make cakes and cookies in orphans, which we didn't have in the home. 303 00:37:24,570 --> 00:37:29,910 Cakes. Well, God is no sugar. What a pity. The Europeans are eating what is sugar wood. 304 00:37:29,910 --> 00:37:38,010 That's literally. There was a disconnection between what we were being meant to be were being taught to become and what was in the historical. 305 00:37:38,010 --> 00:37:46,170 But it was deliberately buried, deliberately buried by the drive for modernity, so-called modernity. 306 00:37:46,170 --> 00:37:54,990 And if anything in history started to be taught in the university already in the late 60s. 307 00:37:54,990 --> 00:38:00,280 It was not taught at all because there is something always if you bend civilisation, 308 00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:08,940 then you have to learn about the rest of the world and discipline. So the gap can be created deliberately. 309 00:38:08,940 --> 00:38:15,090 We for for purposes of a push that was driven by government. 310 00:38:15,090 --> 00:38:22,110 And so. And also then there were, of course, the unwise celebrations of the resistance. 311 00:38:22,110 --> 00:38:27,960 Some points in that instance that back against the ending of the liberation movement and 312 00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:33,930 the liberation war of the coming back of fighters unless it'll have to be celebrated. 313 00:38:33,930 --> 00:38:40,320 So occasionally you'd hear radio programmes that if you programme and you start to wonder, what is this? 314 00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:44,480 So as researchers, it was quite a challenge for some of us, 315 00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:54,420 was that this woman even to graduate from basically depressed because women are not allowed into this department stuff. 316 00:38:54,420 --> 00:38:58,080 But anyway, after that, the really deepened. 317 00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:03,930 So I'm not surprised that Mizer had to come across deep in the late 1990s and think this 318 00:39:03,930 --> 00:39:10,180 was way back in this early 70s that we started to what's going on in his European history? 319 00:39:10,180 --> 00:39:21,590 Not so far. Only three books were written by duping squatters of the media by a few days of the ancient history and of the modern history. 320 00:39:21,590 --> 00:39:29,150 Up until recently. And those who passed in the resistance were not free enough to write about their resistance, 321 00:39:29,150 --> 00:39:35,150 Wolf, because they would be seen to be to be shoring up pilots as they ran away. 322 00:39:35,150 --> 00:39:41,020 But. And they had to stay there and fight and shoring him up if they would. 323 00:39:41,020 --> 00:39:45,250 That was censorship when what kind of books were published? 324 00:39:45,250 --> 00:39:49,340 The gaps were that deliberately banned on this warfare. 325 00:39:49,340 --> 00:39:53,500 So that established doctors. 326 00:39:53,500 --> 00:39:59,650 I heard you said something really interesting about this, the fact that, you know, 327 00:39:59,650 --> 00:40:04,960 this history growing up of women who fought in the health of the mother. 328 00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:10,640 And you knew it from your aunts, grandparents, your grandparents. 329 00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:22,720 And it has made me think since this book has been published and I started talking about my own discovery of my great grandmother's role, 330 00:40:22,720 --> 00:40:28,270 which was very late in this book process. My mother knew that history. 331 00:40:28,270 --> 00:40:34,160 Her sisters knew the history. The women know it. 332 00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:39,860 And so it makes me think that this this the history of women in war. 333 00:40:39,860 --> 00:40:48,690 Is often retold in the spaces of women. It doesn't necessarily progress into the other dominant spaces. 334 00:40:48,690 --> 00:40:55,620 Men talk about politics at a party or they talk, you know, in the classrooms like you're talking about. 335 00:40:55,620 --> 00:41:03,120 If we were to go in the kitchen or in the sitting room where women are gathered, that's where that history existed. 336 00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:11,180 And I had no idea about that. But what you're saying confirms to me that this is this is where a lot of that is. 337 00:41:11,180 --> 00:41:17,720 Yes. I mean, I come in. Let me show it to her and then we'll move to where I am. 338 00:41:17,720 --> 00:41:22,630 Yeah. When I was interviewing the kids, Kiddish began the most famous obesity. 339 00:41:22,630 --> 00:41:32,910 Just infighters, she said. I said to her, Could you tell me what other women were working with you and how did you get to so and so that her boss? 340 00:41:32,910 --> 00:41:37,950 So I said, But if you want me to get King, do you want me to get King? 341 00:41:37,950 --> 00:41:43,130 Not want to talk about just this. I was interviewing her for the good old women. 342 00:41:43,130 --> 00:41:49,290 Get a look. I asked for me and my parents and my grandparents. 343 00:41:49,290 --> 00:41:58,350 I don't know if I should be bringing this in, but I grew up in a household where my father was put in a good prison and under house arrest. 344 00:41:58,350 --> 00:42:02,180 So all the talk from all our relatives was one. 345 00:42:02,180 --> 00:42:13,860 Plus they had more present the cause for this unless it was really good heat on everything they had to say and do. 346 00:42:13,860 --> 00:42:17,520 So all this talk is just that then I grew up is that. 347 00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:23,720 That's what I'm saying. I grew up. Is that then when in these schools, in the universities, 348 00:42:23,720 --> 00:42:30,950 we should be when teaching Ethiopian history begun, then we reinforce the research to find out. 349 00:42:30,950 --> 00:42:37,630 And the women space was not the only one that I had a list of 3000 guerrilla fighters. 350 00:42:37,630 --> 00:42:44,740 Of those, only 300 were women's names, not because they didn't they weren't there because needed. 351 00:42:44,740 --> 00:42:51,180 I think association was scared of one of them said to me, we're scared of them. 352 00:42:51,180 --> 00:42:58,210 They were scared of the emperor thinking the names of the women. So that that was done to the creation. 353 00:42:58,210 --> 00:43:05,070 Thank you. Thanks very much, Signe. Thanks, Martha. And and also to Richard in behind you. 354 00:43:05,070 --> 00:43:13,620 I mean, there's a lot more that we could say. And indeed, we're now going to bring in questions from the audience. 355 00:43:13,620 --> 00:43:21,930 There are a number of questions that have already come in. And what I might do is two groups, some of them. 356 00:43:21,930 --> 00:43:32,700 So there are two questions here on this topic of writing fiction and writing history and how we recover hidden histories, 357 00:43:32,700 --> 00:43:40,410 which, you know, we've been touching on all of us. So here's the first question on this topic. 358 00:43:40,410 --> 00:43:45,900 I'm interested in your writing process in writing a story that aims to recover hidden histories. 359 00:43:45,900 --> 00:43:52,020 How much did you lean in to your imagination and how much did you rely on research? 360 00:43:52,020 --> 00:43:59,010 And then there's this related question, which is also true, Richard, actually. 361 00:43:59,010 --> 00:44:07,500 It's Demarzo Richardson to High. How much of your own experiences did you involve in your publications? 362 00:44:07,500 --> 00:44:14,190 So, Marza, over to you. Oh, interesting question. 363 00:44:14,190 --> 00:44:27,640 The history and my research gave me a framework. So to move in to move into the world of nineteen thirty five to nineteen forty one, 364 00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:38,110 I did not know much about it except the stories that I heard in my family and the stories that I heard were mainly anecdotal, 365 00:44:38,110 --> 00:44:41,950 brief things that my talk about one battle or two battles. 366 00:44:41,950 --> 00:44:48,490 But this war lasted for five years. The occupation lasted for five years, six years. 367 00:44:48,490 --> 00:44:50,620 What happened on a daily basis. 368 00:44:50,620 --> 00:45:00,790 And this is where I needed to research in order to then imagine the daily life for each of my characters and begin to think about the conflict. 369 00:45:00,790 --> 00:45:09,070 So the richer research gave me that framing. But the one thing I wanted to do, which was where my imagination came in, 370 00:45:09,070 --> 00:45:21,370 was to take that research that I had this world and beat and pivot it so that I'm looking at it from the perspective of women and girls. 371 00:45:21,370 --> 00:45:31,870 And so if the book begins with Heated in 1974 and then it goes to HITO to nineteen thirty five, she's won the thread. 372 00:45:31,870 --> 00:45:37,420 But every single character in that book is introduced through their relationship 373 00:45:37,420 --> 00:45:43,420 to a girl or to a woman even kidnapped when he's we see him with Uster. 374 00:45:43,420 --> 00:45:48,310 So that was the imagination coming in. 375 00:45:48,310 --> 00:45:55,230 And in terms of my personal experience, I. 376 00:45:55,230 --> 00:46:02,250 I had the stories growing up, but they were not enough to write a book. 377 00:46:02,250 --> 00:46:08,620 It was my own interest in this that kept me going. And I'll leave it at that. 378 00:46:08,620 --> 00:46:17,020 Very, very briefly, do either Richardo, it's a high want to chip in about this or do you think that. 379 00:46:17,020 --> 00:46:21,550 Do you do you do. Do you have anything further to say about that? 380 00:46:21,550 --> 00:46:35,440 I would just say very, very quickly that I think it's the historians are all products of of of experience and on their own, 381 00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:43,880 their own emotional state, in a sense. And I think when I started out, I thought that you could separate the two. 382 00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:48,000 And you could simply riots who history with, like been in yourself. 383 00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,670 And that I no longer believe that. 384 00:46:51,670 --> 00:47:01,490 Possibly. Maybe that's just edge. But certainly my more recent work is entirely based on experience. 385 00:47:01,490 --> 00:47:06,360 And I think we need some grace, a lot more. Thank you. 386 00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:12,650 Thank you, Richard. Shall we move on to the next question or do would you like to come in? 387 00:47:12,650 --> 00:47:18,500 Hi. That's OK. Just to say yes, my experience of my own family. 388 00:47:18,500 --> 00:47:29,830 But it's very sad and that I. I'm not going to turn to a rather different question, which is as follows. 389 00:47:29,830 --> 00:47:35,050 Martha, Italian imperialism is a controversial topic in Italy. 390 00:47:35,050 --> 00:47:46,720 I know the novel hasn't yet been translated into Italian, but I wonder if you've had any responses to it from Italian readers or Italian audiences? 391 00:47:46,720 --> 00:47:54,310 I have. Well, when the book won the Plenty, the Premier League, Ponty, the Bridge Prise, 392 00:47:54,310 --> 00:48:01,330 I went to Rome to accept the prise and Sandro Trilled Sea was at the ceremony. 393 00:48:01,330 --> 00:48:16,000 My adviser, my mentor. And when the judges spoke, they were a group of Italian judges and they talked about the difficulty that this war represents, 394 00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:24,550 the difficulty of this in talking about the war, that it's an uncomfortable history for Italians. 395 00:48:24,550 --> 00:48:33,650 The interesting thing that they said that I found really striking was every single one of them said that they. 396 00:48:33,650 --> 00:48:45,110 Recognised. Someone in their family, in my portrayal of the Colonel Charlie, which was one of the crueller characters in the book. 397 00:48:45,110 --> 00:48:50,870 The book has not come out yet. It will be released in Italy next next spring. 398 00:48:50,870 --> 00:48:58,230 But even in that ceremony, there was a man who stood up. 399 00:48:58,230 --> 00:49:04,490 And it was just not in agreement with what we're doing here. 400 00:49:04,490 --> 00:49:09,840 He had he did not necessarily think that this history was that bad. 401 00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:14,190 So that was just, I think, a sense of what might happen. 402 00:49:14,190 --> 00:49:19,000 Italy has moved to the far right. You know, more and more in these last few years. 403 00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:21,210 It'll be interesting to see the reception. 404 00:49:21,210 --> 00:49:31,620 But what I do know very quickly, just speaking to friends of mine in Italy who have family members who had been part of that war. 405 00:49:31,620 --> 00:49:37,170 What they have told me again and again is when they go and ask them about this war, 406 00:49:37,170 --> 00:49:42,300 about Ethiopia, they they've told me it's it's a wall in our family. 407 00:49:42,300 --> 00:49:48,440 No one wants to talk about this. So I think it is still uncomfortable. 408 00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:51,330 And we'll see what happens. 409 00:49:51,330 --> 00:50:01,900 Speaking into another silence there, not only the silence of unspoken history, but also the silence of censored memory in a way, isn't it? 410 00:50:01,900 --> 00:50:06,210 It could be today. Go. Go ahead, honey. 411 00:50:06,210 --> 00:50:14,060 Okay. Thank you. I because I think it raises a very interesting point about the mixing of language, which is very prevalent in in the Shadow King. 412 00:50:14,060 --> 00:50:19,830 And because when especially he's talking about the storytelling. Who tells the story accurately? 413 00:50:19,830 --> 00:50:26,960 Done it. Do we tell the story accurately in Italian? Do we tell Itanium in Amharic or do we talk it in English? 414 00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:36,110 Or do we tell it together? And I think there's a very interesting point later in the book where it story speaks with Dr. Haley when this goes. 415 00:50:36,110 --> 00:50:44,300 He's speaking in healthy Italian slow Horak, as if they were both aware that language will never throw it the distance between them. 416 00:50:44,300 --> 00:50:49,540 But I think it's very clever that this mar's I've included this in the later chapter 417 00:50:49,540 --> 00:50:54,540 of the book because she is treading the distance by mentioning it this way, 418 00:50:54,540 --> 00:50:55,200 actually. 419 00:50:55,200 --> 00:51:06,320 The gap is being filled and we know that there is a lot of Italian, English and Amharic words casually or purposefully embedded in the novel. 420 00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:09,650 And that's, I think, a very great step in to saying, OK, 421 00:51:09,650 --> 00:51:17,360 let's tell the story collectively and let's appreciate that Italians were Italian was spoken during the occupation, not just Amharic. 422 00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:21,710 So I think that's another significant aspect of the storytelling. 423 00:51:21,710 --> 00:51:27,560 Yeah, the languages through which the war is narrated. Yeah, very much so. 424 00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:32,660 I'm going to turn to another question just in the interests of time. 425 00:51:32,660 --> 00:51:39,110 This is this is an exciting possibility that this question is, is turning on Mars. 426 00:51:39,110 --> 00:51:43,280 We've heard that your brilliant book may become a movie. Can you speak to this? 427 00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:52,070 Are you able to tell us a bit about that? It is being made into a movie. 428 00:51:52,070 --> 00:52:00,170 I'm excited about it. I, I, you know, it's just really at the beginning stages. 429 00:52:00,170 --> 00:52:04,580 I know everybody is wondering who's going to get cast in what roles. 430 00:52:04,580 --> 00:52:08,270 And, you know, I have no idea. 431 00:52:08,270 --> 00:52:14,360 Please don't ask me. At the end of this, I was excited as everyone. 432 00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:21,660 I'm waiting to see what happens. I'm very interested in seeing how many voices, the photographs, the chorus. 433 00:52:21,660 --> 00:52:29,150 I'm interested to see how that translates. And I'll see who they pick for the actors. 434 00:52:29,150 --> 00:52:33,800 Yeah. So I'm I'm curious and excited just like everyone else. 435 00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:40,850 That sounds really enticing. Moving back to the to the story itself. 436 00:52:40,850 --> 00:52:45,590 There's a question here about one of the characters, Marza. 437 00:52:45,590 --> 00:52:53,300 How did you feel about the character of Kitani? Who is the antihero in the book? 438 00:52:53,300 --> 00:53:00,830 Wow. You know, I think he that was put in a difficult situation. 439 00:53:00,830 --> 00:53:07,430 He was born into a world that had certain expectations of him and he fulfilled them very well. 440 00:53:07,430 --> 00:53:14,870 Every every role he he was willing to sacrifice his life for Ethiopia. 441 00:53:14,870 --> 00:53:21,980 And at the same time, he was going to take what he wanted in the process, regardless of what he wrote or ask. 442 00:53:21,980 --> 00:53:25,670 There might might have thought or might have wanted. 443 00:53:25,670 --> 00:53:35,690 There is one moment in the book where I have him imagine what he might have been like if he was not born into the family he was born into. 444 00:53:35,690 --> 00:53:42,860 With all the pressures that that came with. So I. 445 00:53:42,860 --> 00:53:50,360 I find him an interesting and complicated character. Antihero might be a good word. 446 00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:56,710 I don't know if there's any real hero in the book because they're all flawed in so many ways. 447 00:53:56,710 --> 00:54:05,260 But I'm one of the questions that I asked in this book as well as the first book is What Makes a Hero? 448 00:54:05,260 --> 00:54:12,310 And what makes a heroic act when it's done by someone who maybe is not so nice? 449 00:54:12,310 --> 00:54:18,250 So Kidane is was an interesting vehicle for that. 450 00:54:18,250 --> 00:54:29,240 Thanks very much, Marza. This is a question that's probably sort of moving to Ward's closing point. 451 00:54:29,240 --> 00:54:37,810 We might have time for one more. I'm not sure that this is more a question about the writing process itself. 452 00:54:37,810 --> 00:54:47,770 And about how you write. Is it a particular environment that you create to work in music that you listen to to get you in the mood? 453 00:54:47,770 --> 00:54:56,500 I'm reading this is a bit of a lockdown question, you know. But take it, as you will of I listen to music. 454 00:54:56,500 --> 00:55:04,150 I listen to a lot of music while I was writing the book, and it depended sometimes on the scenes that I was working on. 455 00:55:04,150 --> 00:55:09,040 I had a lot of Ethiopian music that I was listening to. 456 00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:16,600 Things like the songs, the old songs, the shillelagh. 457 00:55:16,600 --> 00:55:21,250 I was listening to those things. I was listening to anything with some kind of a beat. 458 00:55:21,250 --> 00:55:26,530 If I'm writing the battle scene. So that's that's what I would do. 459 00:55:26,530 --> 00:55:37,570 I wrote this book in many different places, so it wasn't necessarily an environment I could just put on my headphones or block the world out. 460 00:55:37,570 --> 00:55:41,620 I'm a desk with enough. Sometimes I didn't have a desk. 461 00:55:41,620 --> 00:55:44,380 I could just put my computer on my lap. 462 00:55:44,380 --> 00:55:53,020 But in terms of my writing process, I tend to write by hand first, and that slows my brain and forces me to think. 463 00:55:53,020 --> 00:55:57,250 And I started that process with this book, not the first book. 464 00:55:57,250 --> 00:56:02,080 And it's been really helpful. Thanks, Martha. 465 00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:13,510 And actually, on that question of music. One of the questions is, and this may be a good way to to move to your clothes, then. 466 00:56:13,510 --> 00:56:25,020 Do you have any of the titles to recommend of the songs that the as Morrie's saying, you know. 467 00:56:25,020 --> 00:56:28,800 Gosh, there is one. Doctors. 468 00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:36,320 Hi, you might even know who sings, and now I can't think of it all of a sudden, but fun to. 469 00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:42,860 Do you remember? And I found that the old song on YouTube once. 470 00:56:42,860 --> 00:56:49,240 32 minute xiri to. I think it's too. 471 00:56:49,240 --> 00:56:55,300 It's an old old singer, but I'm sorry, I don't remember. But I. 472 00:56:55,300 --> 00:57:01,520 Some of the songs are available online. I mean, I just I would sometimes look them up. 473 00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:09,550 Oh. My God, the fascists made recordings of battle songs. 474 00:57:09,550 --> 00:57:16,450 And when I was in Rome, I went to the discotheque, had this battle and there were albums of songs. 475 00:57:16,450 --> 00:57:19,930 Speaking of what what we lose when we don't save it. 476 00:57:19,930 --> 00:57:27,660 But they were recording all of these things. And I found a lot of the songs and I had a C.D. made. 477 00:57:27,660 --> 00:57:34,030 They're amazing. They were amazing. These are the songs that soldiers would sing to to get. 478 00:57:34,030 --> 00:57:38,860 To get them ready to face battle. They were rhythmic and driving. 479 00:57:38,860 --> 00:57:43,030 And then. And then they would go and go after the enemy. 480 00:57:43,030 --> 00:57:48,130 So I had those that I would listen to. Thanks. 481 00:57:48,130 --> 00:57:51,940 Thanks so much, mother. That's a lovely, evocative moment. 482 00:57:51,940 --> 00:58:01,360 I mean, these songs that were recorded by the Italian fascists that then became inspirational for you to write your counter history, your novel. 483 00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:05,350 That's that's marvellous. That's really great. 484 00:58:05,350 --> 00:58:13,680 Thank you so much. I think it is probably time to two to round. 485 00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:18,310 We had just up to the hour, I think. 486 00:58:18,310 --> 00:58:35,490 So I would like to say thank you very, very much to our panellists to behind you, again, say to Richard Reid and to say hi behind us, Selassie. 487 00:58:35,490 --> 00:58:46,120 A very, very big thank you to Muslim and gay stay novelist today who has been telling us about this 488 00:58:46,120 --> 00:58:57,130 incredibly interesting work that reclaims the history of women warriors in Ethiopia in the 1930s, 489 00:58:57,130 --> 00:59:01,810 the shadow king. Lots of exciting developments there. 490 00:59:01,810 --> 00:59:04,540 Possible film in the offing. 491 00:59:04,540 --> 00:59:12,730 So we look forward to hearing more about that and following the success of this wonderful book that you've shared with us today. 492 00:59:12,730 --> 00:59:15,190 Thanks so much, Moslem and stay. 493 00:59:15,190 --> 00:59:25,810 I would also like to say a special thank you to the North East Africa Forum in the African Studies Centre, which has supported the event today. 494 00:59:25,810 --> 00:59:39,400 Thank you so much. Thank you. To the The Torch and Humanities team for supporting this event and for facilitating it. 495 00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:43,510 Thank you to the audience for watching and for all these great questions. 496 00:59:43,510 --> 00:59:49,450 I'm sorry that it wasn't possible to squeeze in all of them. I'm just looking at the final few that came in there. 497 00:59:49,450 --> 00:59:53,380 Great. But I'm sorry. Time was up. 498 00:59:53,380 --> 01:00:03,280 And I'd like to invite people who are interested to join Torch for our next big event live, which is Thursday, the 21st of May. 499 01:00:03,280 --> 01:00:11,560 Put that in your diaries where we're going to be meeting the multi award winning artist Jamelia, who will be exploring themes related to music. 500 01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:17,680 Again, song performance and what it means to be an artist in lockdown. 501 01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:23,050 So how great is that? So thanks very much for joining us today. 502 01:00:23,050 --> 01:00:28,940 Thanks so much to Moslem and. And I hope you be able to come back soon, everyone. 503 01:00:28,940 --> 01:01:10,073 Goodbye.