The New York Times reviewer of Nega Mezlekia’s Notes From the Hyena’s Belly extolls “the author’s fine storytelling
instincts and the value of getting these stories told,” calling it “the most riveting book about Ethiopia since
Ryszard Kapuscinski’s literary allegory The Emperor and the
most distinguished African literary memoir since Soyinka’s
Ake appeared 20 years ago”. The review does not mention the controversy brewing around a Canadian government investigation of Mezlekia’s alleged plot to kill his former thesis advisor and other faculty of his doctoral program in Canada, to which I blinked several months ago.