Aida Edemariam is an Ethiopian-Canadian journalist based in the UK, who has worked in New York, Toronto and London.[1] She was formerly deputy review and books editor of the Canadian National Post,[2] and is now a senior feature writer and editor at The Guardian in the UK. She lives in Oxford.[1] Her memoir about her Ethiopian grandmother, The Wife's Tale: A Personal History, won the Ondaatje Prize in 2019.[3][4]
Aida Edemariam | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Ethiopian, Canadian |
| Alma mater | Oxford University; University of Toronto |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Employer | The Guardian |
| Notable work | The Wife's Tale (2018) |
| Father | Edemariam Tsega |
| Awards | Jerwood Award; Ondaatje Prize |
Biography
editEdemariam was born to an Ethiopian father and a Canadian mother. She grew up in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. She studied English literature at Oxford University and the University of Toronto.[5]
In 2014 her then forthcoming memoir, The Wife's Tale: A Personal History[6] – the story of Edemariam's Ethiopian grandmother, Yetemegnu[7] – was awarded the Royal Society of Literature's Jerwood Award for a non-fiction work in progress.[8][1]
Informed by the author's 70 hours of interviews and conversations in Amharic with Yetemegnu,[9] The Wife's Tale received favourable critical on its publication in February 2018 by Fourth Estate/HarperCollins,[10][11] with the reviewer for The Times finding it "enriching",[12] and Lucy Hughes-Hallett writing in the New Statesman: "To read The Wife's Tale is not just to hear about times past and (for a western reader) far away, but to be transported into them."[13] Nadifa Mohamed's review in The Guardian praised the book as "a loving portrait of a grandmother, undiminished by the distances between the author and her subject",[14] and Nilanjana Roy in The Financial Times described it as an "outstanding and unusual memoir" in which Edemariam traces a century of Ethiopian history through the life of her nonagenarian grandmother.[15] In The Observer, Arifa Akbar noted: "What brings this narrative flaring to life, though, is not the rigour of its research but its imagination and novelistic tone; Edemariam's prose climbs inside Yetemegnu's memories to inhabit them and bring her solidly, vividly, to life."[16] Selecting The Wife's Tale as one of "the best books by African writers in 2019", Samira Sawlani on African Arguments concluded: "Aida Edemariam has gifted the world a priceless insight into history through her grandmother's eyes."[17]
Edemariam was awarded the Ondaatje Prize for The Wife's Tale in May 2019.[18][19]
She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[20]
References
edit- ^ a b c "Aida Edemariam page". Rogers, Coleridge & White. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
- ^ Edemariam, Aida (27 September 2002). "Us? Boring? Ha!". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
- ^ Kerr, Michael (13 May 2019). "Aida Edemariam's lyrical biography of Ethiopia wins Ondaatje Prize". The Telegraph.
- ^ "Aida Edemariam wins Ondaatje Prize for vivid biography of her Ethiopian grandmother". London, UK: Embassy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. 15 May 2019.
- ^ "Aida Edemariam Books & Biography". Harper Collins. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
- ^ "The Wife's Tale : A Personal History", Book Depository.
- ^ "The Wife's Tale" at NetGallery.
- ^ "RSL Jerwood Awards for Non-Fiction 2014", Royal Society of Literature, December 2014.
- ^ Carter, Sue (22 February 2018), "Author Aida Edemariam tells stories of Ethiopia through grandmother's eyes", Metro (Toronto). Archived 15 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Ammara Isa, "The Wife's Tale by Aida Edemariam" Archived 15 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine, IndieThinking at HarperCollins UK.
- ^ The Wife's Tale, Fourth Estate, 2018, ISBN 978-0007459605.
- ^ Graham, Ysenda Maxtone (17 February 2018). "Review: The Wife's Tale by Aida Edemariam — famine, Red Terror and grief in Ethiopia". The Times.
- ^ Hughes-Hallett, Lucy (11 February 2018). "The Wife's Tale: Aida Edemariam's vivid portrait of her 95-year-old Ethiopian grandmother". New Statesman.
- ^ Mohamed, Nadifa (23 February 2018). "The Wife's Tale by Aida Edemariam review – portrait of a mother goddess". The Guardian.
- ^ "The Wife's Tale by Aida Edemariam — hard times: A vivid family portrait brings a century of Ethiopian history to life", Financial Times, 16 February 2018.
- ^ Akbar, Arifa (18 February 2018). "The Wife's Tale by Aida Edemariam review – anatomy of an unyielding spirit". The Observer.
- ^ Sawlani, Samira (16 July 2019), "The best books by African writers in 2019 so far…", African Arguments
- ^ Flood, Alison (13 May 2019). "Ondaatje prize: Aida Edemariam wins for vivid biography of her grandmother". The Guardian.
- ^ Wood, Heloise (14 May 2019). "Edemariam wins £10k Ondaatje Prize for 'outstanding' family memoir". The Bookseller.
- ^ "New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby", Reading to Transgress, 9 March 2020.
External links
edit- Aida Edemariam page at The Guardian.