Aida Edemariam is an

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

journalist based in the UK, who has worked in New York, Toronto and London. She was formerly deputy review and books editor of the Canadian ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper and the flagship publication of the American-owned Postmedia Network. It is published Mondays through Saturdays, with Monday released as a digital e-edition only.

'', and is now a senior feature writer and editor at ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' in the UK. She lives in

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

. Her memoir about her Ethiopian grandmother, ''The Wife's Tale: A Personal History'', won the Ondaatje Prize in 2019.

Biography

Edemariam was born to an

n father and a

mother. She grew up in

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

, the capital of

. She studied English literature at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

and the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. In 2014 her then forthcoming memoir, ''The Wife's Tale: A Personal History'' – the story of Edemariam's Ethiopian grandmother, Yetemegnu – was awarded the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

Jerwood Award The Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Awards for Non-Fiction were financial awards made to assist new writers of non-fiction to carry out new research, and/or to devote more time to writing. The awards were administrated by the Royal Society of ...

for a non-fiction work in progress. Informed by the author's 70 hours of interviews and conversations in

Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...

with Yetemegnu, ''The Wife's Tale'' received favourable critical on its publication in February 2018 by Fourth Estate/HarperCollins, with the reviewer for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' finding it "enriching", and Lucy Hughes-Hallett writing in the ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

'': "To read ''The Wife's Tale'' is not just to hear about times past and (for a western reader) far away, but to be transported into them." Nadifa Mohamed's review in ''The Guardian'' praised the book as "a loving portrait of a grandmother, undiminished by the distances between the author and her subject", and Nilanjana Roy in ''

The Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' described it as an "outstanding and unusual memoir" in which Edemariam traces a century of Ethiopian history through the life of her nonagenarian grandmother. In ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

'', Arifa Akbar noted: "What brings this narrative flaring to life, though, is not the rigour of its research but its imagination and novelistic tone; Edemariam's prose climbs inside Yetemegnu's memories to inhabit them and bring her solidly, vividly, to life." Selecting ''The Wife's Tale'' as one of "the best books by African writers in 2019", Samira Sawlani on ''African Arguments'' concluded: "Aida Edemariam has gifted the world a priceless insight into history through her grandmother's eyes." Edemariam was awarded the Ondaatje Prize for ''The Wife's Tale'' in May 2019. She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology '' New Daughters of Africa'', edited by

Margaret Busby Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's then youngest publisher as well as the first black female book p ...

."New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby"
''Reading to Transgress'', 9 March 2020.

References

External links

Aida Edemariam page
at ''The Guardian''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Edemariam, Aida Living people 21st-century Canadian journalists 21st-century Canadian women writers Alumni of the University of Oxford Canadian people of Ethiopian descent 21st-century Canadian women journalists Canadian women non-fiction writers Ethiopian writers The Guardian journalists University of Toronto alumni Year of birth missing (living people)