The Anglo-Ethiopian Society
POSTPONED - Book Launch - White Hyena
Fra von Massow with Angela Raven-Roberts
Sunday 10th December 2023
White Hyena, a novel by Fra von Massow, is the intertwining story of Ashebir, a boy growing up in the northern highlands of 1980s Ethiopia, and Izzie, a young English woman finding her feet on the streets of Addis Ababa. The book is well researched, based on fact and lived experiences of the main protagonists. It is however a story, a novel, a fictionalised account.
The book will pick you up, swirl you round, and will – with its Eskista beats, coffee ceremonies, friendships and laughter, its mountains and fireside encounters, its loudspeakers in markets and fruit and veg stalls in Piazza, Addis Ababa – immerse you in the Ethiopia of the 1980s. It is also the story of famine and how one boy experienced loss and separation and survived.
The author, Fra, was born in 1950s London and grew up in England, Spain, the US, and Wales. She spent much of her time from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s living and working in different parts of Africa, including Malawi, Congo Zaire and Ethiopia. She now lives between London and a farm near the River Elbe in northern Germany. Always an avid letter and notebook writer, this is her first novel. While White Hyena is a story of individual experiences it is pertinent to the overwhelming themes of today, the impact of climate change, famine in East Africa, and conflict and war in different, and sometimes forgotten, parts of the world, and the incredible bond between friends, neighbours, and family, underpinning the will to survive.
Fra will present her book accompanied by short readings and will also be in discussion with Society Chair Angela Raven-Roberts to talk about Fra’s time in Ethiopia and the influences that had in writing the novel.
Seasonal refreshments will be served from 2.30pm with the talk and discussion starting at 3pm.
Copies of White Hyena will be available at the special price of £10.00. Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to projects supporting the health, welfare, and livelihoods of rural women traders in Ethiopia. Sales and signing will take place from 2.30pm before the talk or immediately after.
Update Thursday 7 December - Event Postponed - We hope to be able to run it at a later date.
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White Hyena by Fra von Massow Publisher: Independently published via Amazon, 2023 ISBN: 9798365665149 (paperback), UK RRP £15.99 |