The Art of Life: Maaza Mengiste

In this episode of The Art of Life the Booker-shortlisted novelist, essayist and photographer Maaza Mengiste picks out three works of art that have been significant for her, taking us from a photograph of an armed Ethiopian woman by one of her Italian invaders in the 1930s to Velázquez’s portrait of Juan de Pareja, via a painting-photograph by the Portuguese artist Helena Almeida. Of the Ethiopian photograph and its companions – which Maaza has collected over the years in flea markets and antique shops in Italy and beyond – she explains how the power dynamic between subject and maker fascinates her, and how she began to see these photographs as self-portraits. 'It has completely rearranged the way I think about images; I have begun to think of paintings as self-portraits, regardless of what’s actually on canvas or within the frame.’ Maaza discusses her most recent novel The Shadow King, and how these photographs relate to it, as well as her love of Homer and the poet Christopher Logue. And there’s one question she begs us all to ask older members of our families: ‘What haven’t you told me?’

1. Bogalesc or Bogalech, Debre Birhan, Ethiopia, c. 1937, unknown photographer

2. Pintura Habitada (1977/2007), Helena Almeida (1934–2018)

3. Juan de Pareja (1606–1670) (1650), Velázquez (1599–1660). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste is published in the UK by Canongate. Project 3541, a photographic archive of the 1935–41 Italo-Ethiopian War, can be found here.

Hosted by Sophie Barling

Sound editing by Matthew Taylor