Unfortunate Marriage Of Azeb Yitades [Paperback]

Spanning from the 1960s to the 1990s, The Unfortunate Marriage of Azeb Yitades is an epic tale of a small village in eastern Ethiopia struggling to maintain its identity and heritage as the modern world encroaches on its isolation.

Aba Yitades, the local priest, takes this challenge very personally. The father of three daughters, he is always alert to the new temptations they face—and never more so than when the arrival of a family of American missionaries threatens to put an end to the community’s most treasured traditions.

Steeped in the rich and unique culture of the Ethiopian highlands, this story of a village’s reluctant but inevitable modernization—and one woman’s tragic downfall—is told with Nega Mezlekia’s customary wit and charm.

Nega Mezlekia was born in Ethiopia. A professional engineer with degrees from Addis Ababa University, the Wageningen University in the Netherlands, the University of Waterloo, and McGill University, he now lives in Toronto. His memoir, Notes from the Hyena’s Belly, received international praise and won the Governor General’s Award for Non-fiction. His writing has received international acclaim and has been compared by critics to that of Gabriel García Márquez, Ben Okri, Wole Soyinka, and Isabel Allende.