Notes from the Hyena's Belly: An Ethiopian Boyhood

Winner of the Governor Generals AwardA Library Journal Best Book of 2001Part autobiography and part social history Notes from the Hyenas Belly offers an unforgettable portrait of Ethiopia and of Africa during the 1970s and 80s an era of civil war widespread famine and mass execution. We children lived like the donkey Mezlekia remembers careful not to wander off the beaten trail and end up in the hyenas belly. His memoir sheds light not only on the violence and disorder that beset his native country but on the rich spiritual and cultural life of Ethiopia itself. Throughout he portrays the careful divisions in dress language and culture between the Muslims and Christians of the Ethiopian landscape. Mezlekia also explores the struggle between western European interests and communist influences that caused the collapse of Ethiopias social and political structure―and that forced him at age 18 to join a guerrilla army. Through droughts floods imprisonment and killing sprees at the hands of military juntas Mezlekia survived eventually emigrating to Canada. In Notes from the Hyenas Belly he bears witness to a time and place that few Westerners have understood.