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A review by dgrachel
Addis Ababa Noir by Maaza Mengiste
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.