The Wife's Tale is a beautiful history of a family that will pull at your heart strings.

My goodness, this book was impossible for me to put down. This breath taking recount of a woman's life in Ethiopia was truly incredible. I'm Canadian and I haven't left North America, so reading about other people's lives has always been something I enjoy. Seeing into this woman's life and the troubles and triumphs that occurred... It's so incredible that there are hardly words.

This memoir is worth every second and needs to be read by everyone (in my humble opinion). The life of this stranger and how she lived will give you insight to a world you might not have been aware existed. Yetemegnu's life and journey is so mind blowing! I highly recommend this book and it's a must read for me!

This woman was married young, had many children, learned so much and felt so many emotions throughout her life. It was mesmerizing and made me really think about my own life as well. The reflection this novel brings on is worth every penny.

This book may be difficult to follow - some words are not in English, but in my ARC there was a little dictionary at the back. Additionally, it's not some action packed story - it's following a woman's life, so at times it's not super exciting. It's a slice of Yetemegnu's life.

This story of bravery, determination and love is one of my top books of the year now. I want to see it on every bookshelf in town! If you're looking for a book to open up your horizons, pick this book up! Seriously, make it one of the few books you read this year!!

Five out of five stars.

I received a free copy of this book in ARC form via Goodreads First Reads. ( )

This is a book that manages to be interesting without actually being terribly engaging. It is an account of the author's grandmother's life, taken from interviews over 20 years. It seems to wander about in tense and in the person, at times grandmother is "she" at others she is referred to by name. In the final portion of the book, the author appears in the first person and starts describing people by her relationship to them. It makes for a book that is hard to follow in places.
The chronology is also hard to follow. The books is divided into a number of years, but things like the interval between the children's births is never really described in detail (until the chronology at the end, by which time it;s to late). And I understand that is how you'd discuss life in memory, but it makes for a story that is curiously un-rooted. Then there are the many religious passages, which seemed to have barely any relationship to the events before or after their insertion. I'm not sure what they were supposed to contribute.
Having said that, it is a tale from a completely different time and culture and she lives through an awful lot in her 98 years. Married young to a man in his 30s there are hints of abuse, but it's in passing, as if it were normal. Then there are the impact of national and international events on the rural corner of Ethiopia, the Italian invasion, a couple of revolutions, a famine and through it all she survives. I liked the way she embraced technology like the radio and telephone, with delight.
It has a lot to interest the reader, I'm just not sure that the execution presents the material in the most engaging manner. ( )

And a half star. Started this book in Gondar on my first visit to Africa. It helped bring a depth to my experiences and because I was there in many of the places she spent her life, brought sights and smells and sounds, plant and trees, animals and birds, food and drink, and people - all new to me and all making reading the memoir of Yetemegnu richer and deeper. I loved the structure and poetry of Aide Edemariam's writing and the description of recent (and some more ancient) history of Ethiopia. ( )

A biography (or a memoir?) of the author's grandmother who was born and died in Ethiopia at the age of 92. The story was good and yet somber and sad. Yetemegnu was 8 when she was married to a 22 year old priest-scholar. The marriage was not consummated until she became a "woman", but she had her first child at age 14. Yetemegnu was in labor 2 days and 3 nights and went into a coma, however, she recovered and went on to have 8 more living children and one stillborn. The first three births were all that horrendous. She was beaten with a stick by her husband for the most minute reasons, all part of her upbringing. Usually, she thanked him for teaching her the correct ways. The beatings ceased for the most part while she raised her children. Her husband was often away from home and was eventually jailed for many years on charges of treason. She spent years away from home and allowed her 4 youngest children to go into State care so that she could camp out in front of the prison and see that her husband was fed and cared for. There are ghastly descriptions of mutilation for goiters and also clitoridectomies (although Yetemegnu did not have this surgery). As I stated, the story was good, but it was also in need of a good editor. Oftentimes it was difficult to ascertain whose voice was telling a particular part of the story--the granddaughter or the grandmother. Also difficult to distinguish between grandma's speech and her thoughts. If you do read this book, I would advise that you know some of the history of Ethiopia from just prior to the Great War until the early 1980's. A fair amount of the story is taken up with the Italian invasion and occupation. Also, if you read, there are maps and a word appendage at the end of the book, which I wish I would have known before I read the book! I think other people liked this book better than I because it was a finalist for the Governor General's Aware in Canada. 336 pages ( )

"Light rains, spots of fresh green grass. Storks fly north. Women prepare fuel for the rainy season: deadwood, and sundried cow dung coated with mud. Caravans hurry home from Sudan. Fishing in rivers. Children sing of the country’s wellbeing to storks, men and women picnic outside, celebrating the birthday of Mary."
This was every bit as marvellous as the reviews and prizes suggest it is. The author tells the story of her grandmother, who was married as a child and by virtue of a long life saw huge change in Ethiopia. She lived under imperial rule, witnessed the Italian invasion, and then British bombs. She lived through the takeover of the Marxist-Leninist influenced Derg, and the terrible famines everyone over a certain age will no doubt picture when someone mentions Ethiopia.

This isn't a universal picture: the author doesn't hide the affluence of her grandmother's family. But her privilege meant that she travelled and witnessed more than some, and as a woman her experience across the century is now very much of an almost unrecognisable past, and was of the past even to her children and grandchildren. I loved the way the author structured the book around Ethiopian months, with a description of the season and traditional work. ( )