The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat (English and Polish Edition) - Hardcover

Ryszard Kapuscinski

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151287716 ISBN 13: 9780151287710

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983

Synopsis

Examines the reign and recent fall of Ethiopia's Haile Selassie through eyewitness accounts of former members of the Emperor's circle

About this title

Review:

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.

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.)

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.

From the Publisher:

"[The Emperor] transcends reportage, becoming a nightmare of power... An unforgettable, fiercely comic, and finally compassionate book."--Salman Rushdie

About this edition

• Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0151287716
• ISBN 13: 9780151287710
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 164