false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173200610m/256214.jpg 59660 20 Haile Selassie, His Most Puissant Majesty and Distinguished Highness the Emperor of Ethiopia, enjoyed a 44-year reign until his own army gave him the boot in 1974. In the days following the coup, the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski traveled to Ethiopia and sought out members of the imperial court for interviews. <P> His composite portrait of Selassie's crumbling imperium is an astonishing, wildly funny creation, beginning with the very first interview. "It was a small dog," recalls an anonymous functionary, "a Japanese breed. His name was Lulu. He was allowed to sleep in the Emperor's great bed. During various ceremonies, he would run away from the Emperor's lap and pee on dignitaries' shoes. The august gentlemen were not allowed to flinch or make the slightest gesture when they felt their feet getting wet. I had to walk among the dignitaries and wipe the urine from their shoes with a satin cloth. This was my job for ten years." (Well, it's a living.) <P> Elsewhere, the interviewees venture into tragic or grotesque or downright unbelievable terrain. Kapuscinski has shaped their testimonies into an eloquent whole, and while he never alludes to the totalitarian regime that ruled his native Poland during the same period, the analogy is impossible to ignore. 1163878 1968 The Emperor total:364|5:129|4:143|3:77|2:15|1:0| 364 1478 536 43 5 4 false false Wed Apr 25 13:03:45 -0700 2007 Wed Apr 25 14:19:05 -0700 2007
...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Feb 17 15:57:37 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 21:25:24 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu May 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 12:14:28 -0700 2009 Thu May 21 12:17:23 -0700 2009 The Emperor baffles any ready description. A Polish journalist, Ryszard Kapuscinski, renders an account of the last schizophrenic years of Ethiopia’s ancient kingdom and the demise of it emperor, whose ways are not our ways, to say the least. Reviews may not suffice to say exactly why or how the...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Apr 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 06 13:20:22 -0700 2009 Wed May 06 13:27:18 -0700 2009
Perhaps it's in the very nature of the excercise, for The Emperor is a book of reminiscences, retelling the last ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jan 14 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 10:54:33 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 12:03:06 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Apr 08 19:34:55 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 19:34:55 -0700 2009 As Haile Selassie's regime in Ethiopia collapsed in 1974, the intrepid Polish journalist interviewed various functionaries and compiled a complete (if composite) picture of that mysterious kingdom, right down to the emperor's dog, which had a habit of peeing on the shoes of dignitaries. "As sca...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jun 29 12:18:10 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 29 12:25:17 -0700 2008 THE SHADOW OF THE SUN is one of my favorite books about Africa; his approach of depicting elements of the continent through intimate vignettes made me feel and understand Africa more than any other book I've read, even if it didn't enhance m...more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jul 26 13:48:23 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 01 17:48:39 -0700 2007
The elegiac tone of their reminisces and the archaic language...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon May 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 23 09:22:23 -0700 2009 Tue May 12 07:36:33 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Jun 12 09:35:37 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 12 09:37:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 26 09:33:46 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 26 09:36:19 -0800 2009
this one covers haile selassie and his god-king-dom through a series of interviews with his "court" after his death. it's incredible as is everything he has ever published. so...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Nov 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 07 11:28:11 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 25 10:59:00 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed Jun 20 14:44:40 -0700 2007 Wed Jun 20 14:49:29 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri May 15 14:29:57 -0700 2009 Fri May 15 14:31:29 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Thu Nov 13 04:24:22 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 13 04:28:58 -0800 2008
The problem with "The Emperor" is the style chosen by the great Polish journalist. At this time Kapuscinski simply reports all the interviews he did to the former Abissinian entourage of Haile Selassiè ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Sep 29 09:48:12 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 03 10:44:28 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 29 09:48:12 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jun 29 18:45:20 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 29 18:45:57 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Wed Jul 18 15:29:21 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 29 11:00:43 -0700 2007 Chilling and creepy - re...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 08 13:50:58 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 08 19:53:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Fri Nov 30 12:37:17 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 30 12:40:12 -0800 2007 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=256214