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lmg's review against another edition
4.0
Reading the fourteen original stories in Addis Ababa Noir took me to a place I know little about and allowed me to experience different parts of the city through the imaginations of the authors. The book is published in the Akashic Noir series, and betrayal, violence, and death are everywhere. The specter of the Ethiopian Red Terror looms large as well.
The book is divided into four sections: Past Hauntings, Translations of Grief, Madness Descends, and Police and Thieves. While I enjoyed all of the stories, four in particular will stay with me. "A Double Edged Inheritance" by Hannah Giorgis and "Ostrich" by Rebecca Fisseha tell the stories of women living abroad who return to Ethiopia with questions whose answers entangle their own histories with that of their country. Dread sidles up to the reader at the beginning of Solomon Hailemariam's "None of Your Business" and lingers beyond the final words. And the characters in editor Maaza Mengiste's own contribution, "Dust, Ash, Flight," put themselves through a hell that rips the scabs off of their emotional wounds while even as it lets them hold onto the hope of resolution and maybe even redemption.
My enjoyment of Addis Ababa Noir is a great incentive to read more of many of these authors. Thanks to LibraryThing for the advanced reading copy.
The book is divided into four sections: Past Hauntings, Translations of Grief, Madness Descends, and Police and Thieves. While I enjoyed all of the stories, four in particular will stay with me. "A Double Edged Inheritance" by Hannah Giorgis and "Ostrich" by Rebecca Fisseha tell the stories of women living abroad who return to Ethiopia with questions whose answers entangle their own histories with that of their country. Dread sidles up to the reader at the beginning of Solomon Hailemariam's "None of Your Business" and lingers beyond the final words. And the characters in editor Maaza Mengiste's own contribution, "Dust, Ash, Flight," put themselves through a hell that rips the scabs off of their emotional wounds while even as it lets them hold onto the hope of resolution and maybe even redemption.
My enjoyment of Addis Ababa Noir is a great incentive to read more of many of these authors. Thanks to LibraryThing for the advanced reading copy.
dreesreads's review against another edition
3.0
I know the series name is the hook here, but I would not call these stories "noir". Yes, they all take place in Addis Ababa, and each is dark in some way, though some are more supernatural than traditionally violent. I wouldn't say good vs evil is undefined either, as most of these are quite clear. But maybe the "noir" genre is undergoing a redefinition--possibly defined by this series? My favorite thing about this series of books, though, is being introduced to current writers I am not familiar with.
Anyway. I have never been to Ethiopia or (obviously) Addis Ababa. I cannot speak to the geographical accuracy of these stories. These are all set in and around the city, but I expected more of the city itself feeling like a character. A few gave a taste of the city itself: Fiseha's "Ostrich" did, as a young woman returns to the city she grew up in. Seyoum's "Under the Minibus Ceiling" definitely did. Others, like Giorgis's "A Double-Edged Inheritace" and Hailemariam's "None of Your Business" speak more to life in Ethiopia in general. Fantaye's "Of the Poet and the Cafe" is more in the style of weird fiction, and might have been my favorite (though it can be so hard to pick just one in an anthology).
The included authors are a mix of Ethiopians living in and out of Ethiopia. Two of the stories (by Fantaye and Seyoum) are translated (presumably from Amharic, though the book does not say).
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Thank you to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and Akashic Books for providing me with a review copy of this book.
Anyway. I have never been to Ethiopia or (obviously) Addis Ababa. I cannot speak to the geographical accuracy of these stories. These are all set in and around the city, but I expected more of the city itself feeling like a character. A few gave a taste of the city itself: Fiseha's "Ostrich" did, as a young woman returns to the city she grew up in. Seyoum's "Under the Minibus Ceiling" definitely did. Others, like Giorgis's "A Double-Edged Inheritace" and Hailemariam's "None of Your Business" speak more to life in Ethiopia in general. Fantaye's "Of the Poet and the Cafe" is more in the style of weird fiction, and might have been my favorite (though it can be so hard to pick just one in an anthology).
The included authors are a mix of Ethiopians living in and out of Ethiopia. Two of the stories (by Fantaye and Seyoum) are translated (presumably from Amharic, though the book does not say).
————
Thank you to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and Akashic Books for providing me with a review copy of this book.
dgrachel's review against another edition
2.0
Merriam Webster dictionary defines noir as "crime fiction featuring hard-boiled cynical characters and bleak sleazy settings". By that definition, Addis Ababa Noir fails miserably. Using noir as an adjective, the stories should ones "having a bleak and darkly cynical quality", Addis Ababa Noir does little better.
Many of the stories are sad or hard to read because of the misery presented, but the majority of them either have supernatural elements requiring suspension of disbelief or they are purely focused on the history of Ethopia in the 1970s and 1980s, a period of deep unrest, revolution, regime change, and political corruption.
I'm not sure if these are representative of a specific style of Ethiopian literature, but I also found that the majority of the stories abruptly ended, as though the authors reached their required word count and just walked away from their typewriters. I found the stories disjointed and the overall collection disappointing. This is my least favorite collection from Akashic, which breaks my heart, because I have been looking forward to this for at least 6 months.
Thanks to LibraryThing and Akashic Books for the free copy of the collection in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are entirely my own.
Many of the stories are sad or hard to read because of the misery presented, but the majority of them either have supernatural elements requiring suspension of disbelief or they are purely focused on the history of Ethopia in the 1970s and 1980s, a period of deep unrest, revolution, regime change, and political corruption.
I'm not sure if these are representative of a specific style of Ethiopian literature, but I also found that the majority of the stories abruptly ended, as though the authors reached their required word count and just walked away from their typewriters. I found the stories disjointed and the overall collection disappointing. This is my least favorite collection from Akashic, which breaks my heart, because I have been looking forward to this for at least 6 months.
Thanks to LibraryThing and Akashic Books for the free copy of the collection in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are entirely my own.
tonstantweader's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
Addis Ababa Noir is another edition of the fantastic Akashic Noir collection of anthologies. There are fourteen short stories, though few are what I would normally think of as noir. Maaza Mengiste is a literary writer and most of the stories in this anthology fit more comfortably into literary fiction than noir. Perhaps when the violence of the Derg, war with Eritrea, and ethnic violence remains in living memory, life itself may be noir.
The first and final stories seem to enfold the others, both stories of remaining through the Derg (a brutal military junta that overthrew Haile Selassie) or fleeing into the diaspora. “Kind Stranger” by Meron Hadero is a confessional story told by a stranger to a man returning for a short visit. The confessor recounts his love for a student whom he betrayed to the Derg decades ago and his encounter with her recently. The final story, “Agony of the Congested Heart” by Teferi Nigussie Tafa is narrated by a man in the diaspora, telling the story of his friendship with another man going back to their college years and time in the resistance.
Magical realism runs through this anthology. People turn into hyenas. A bun flies through a city and to another country. Ghosts narrate their deaths. Death haunts Addis Ababa. The editor’s story, “Dust, Ash, Flight” tells the story of a photographer on an international effort to recover and identify the dead in mass graves. “The Ostrich” tells of a woman haunted by a spot on the road where she saw a dead man. The stories are infused with magic.
Addis Ababa Noir was a disappointment for me. It didn’t really feel like noir despite the grim nature of stories. Some of this may be my own failing to appreciate a different literary aesthetic, but for me, too many of the stories seemed unresolved. They just ended. I realize this is a cultural failing on my part to just accept that the idea of story may be very different and what feels unresolved to me may be exactly what is valued there. The stories do create a strong sense of place. Characters are mostly complex and intriguing. There is a lot to like, but my expectations of the Noir series are high.
- Addis Ababa Noir at Akashic Books
- Maaza Mengiste author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2020/10/24/addis-ababa-noir-ed-by-maaza-mengiste/
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