King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia

ISBN-13: 9781910376645 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 480 str.

Asfa-Wossen Asserate

Opis

Haile Selassie I, the last emperor of Ethiopia, was as brilliant as he was formidable. An early proponent of African unity and independence who claimed to be a descendant of King Solomon, he fought with the Allies against the Axis powers during World War II and was a messianic figure for the Jamaican Rastafarians. But the final years of his empire saw turmoil and revolution, and he was ultimately overthrown and assassinated in a communist coup.

Written by Asfa-Wossen Asserate, Haile Selassie's grandnephew, this is the first major biography of this final "king of kings." Asserate, who spent his childhood and adolescence in Ethiopia before fleeing the revolution of 1974, knew Selassie personally and gained intimate insights into life at the imperial court. Introducing him as a reformer and an autocrat whose personal history--with all of its upheavals, promises, and horrors--reflects in many ways the history of the twentieth century itself, Asserate uses his own experiences and painstaking research in family and public archives to achieve a colorful and even-handed portrait of the emperor.

O autorze

Asserate, Asfa-Wossen
Asfa-Wossen Asserate was born in 1948 in Addis Ababa as a member of the Imperial House of Ethiopia. He read history and law at Cambridge and at the University of Tu bingen, and received his PhD at the University of Frankfurt. He now lives in Frankfurt where he works as a consultant on African and Middle-Eastern Affairs, and as a political analyst. He is a bestselling author in Germany and has been awarded the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize and the Jacob Grimm Prize, two of the country's most prestigious literary prizes.