It is oft-repeated that victors write the stories which eventually become history. Each time a storyteller recalls an event and repackages it into a story, they drag that event through transformative pitstops: faulty recollection, personal bias, omission of detail, dishonesty. The storyteller decides what information to preserve, often favoring remarkability over authenticity. Such is the nature of conventional storytelling. In constructing and preserving narratives that devalue the ordinary, the conventional storyteller erases truths and, with them, the livelihood and history of the unsung.
In her novel The Shadow King, Maaza Mengiste explores this intrinsic component of conventional storytelling, specifically through the character Minim, a peasant whose name directly translates to Nothing. Soft-spoken, poor, and effectively invisible, Minim embodies nothingness until Hirut points out his resemblance to Emperor Hailee Selassie, who has left Ethiopia mid-war for England. At the urging of his fellow soldiers, Minim takes on the role of Shadow King. Suddenly, the nobody, who had once defined his identity by his lack thereof, has become the most important person in the country, though this glory is short-lived. Once the Ethiopians win and the real Hailee Selassie returns, Minim is relegated to his previous peasantly status—no stories to preserve him, no ways to make known the truth. He is the unsung, the forgotten. Assigning Minim a peripheral role in the novel is Mengiste’s way of exploring and even indulging in storytelling convention. By engaging in storytelling conventions through her surface-level narrative, Mengiste is able to lull the reader into a sense of familiarity, maximizing the impact on the reader when she challenges those conventions through her metanarrative, ultimately to criticize conventional storytelling as an act of erasure, in spite of, and because of, its ostensible function as an act of creation.
In order to conceptually preface her challenge to conventional storytelling, Mengiste explicitly establishes the relevant conventions via comments made by Kidane, who reveres and embodies traditional standards. When Kidane formulates his plan to use Minim as the Emperor’s body double, he recalls, “My father and grandfather used to tell me stories of shadow kings” (232). With this, Kidane suggests that he and his predecessors—entire generations of powerful men—remember these shadow kings and actively preserve their legacies through stories. To be spoken of by a powerful man is, in and of itself, a grant of honor and immortalization, since recognition is intrinsic to legacy. To be spoken of, in a glamorized light, by a powerful man to a wide and willing audience elevates that recognition to untouchable fame. Kidane reiterates this when Minim still expresses hesitation: “You’ll help us win the war…There’ll be stories about you that generations will repeat” (232). The preservation and repetition of one’s glory, Kidane implies, renders that glory undying. Permanence is fundamentally remarkable. However, the actualization of these prospects is contingent on the Ethiopians “win[ning]” (232). Mengiste thus ties storytelling to notions inseparable from social status and personal honor such as legacy, tradition, and fame. In doing so, she not only communicates a tenet of conventional storytelling—that victory merits stories—but she also links storytelling to the immortalization of glory.
In this scene, Mengiste also explores the convention of honoring the victorious through Kidane’s behavior. Kidane “puts his arm around Minim” and switches from a “startlingly loud” voice to a “soothing” one (232). This friendly body language and regulation of tone are respectful acts on Kidane’s part. Given the context for this sudden respectfulness, that Kidane is likening Minim to a shadow king protagonist, the message rings clear: a man worth telling stories about is a man worthy of respect. Curiously enough, the story has not even been told at this point. Minim is not The Shadow King yet. The prospect alone is enough for Kidane to treat him more politely than he does Aklilu, a more capable soldier whom Kidane has known for longer. Through Kidane and Minim’s interaction, Mengiste corrobates her depiction of the conventional story as something which warrants glory, specifically for its main character—the conventional hero, so to speak.
In addition to establishing the conventions through her characters, Mengiste implicitly explores conventions in storytelling by participating firsthand, donning the cloak of the conventional in order to later expose its flaws. To this end, Mengiste portrays Minim as the antithesis of a character worth remembering (i.e. the aforementioned conventional hero). A new recruit, Minim is introduced as “a slightly built man” (153) whereas other recruits are introduced as “fearsome…muscular with broad feet and wide shoulders” (58), “confident” and “barrel-chested” (59). Mengiste’s comparatively brief physical description of Minim, combined with the the qualified phrase “slightly built,” denotes his exceeding plainness and lack of prowess. A “built man” is actually strong; a “slightly built man” is barely strong. All this to say, Minim is not the type of man about whom people tell glorious war stories. Immediately following Minim’s introduction, Aklilu “simply [says], [Minim] was never made for war” (153). Aklilu “simply” making this remark implies a casual, low-stakes reply (153). Notably, this is the only time anyone comments on Minim’s military capabilities (it is not a positive comment), and again, Mengiste uses a qualifier. The reaction itself is lackluster, emphasizing Minim’s vapid presence, but it is also underwhelming in a literary sense; the word “simply” indicates mere-ness (153). Mengiste later doubles down on describing Minim underwhelmingly: “this quiet man who rarely talks…He was simply just Minim, the soft-spoken man with the strange name that means Nothing” (230). The double emphasis of two qualifiers, “simply” and “just,” reduces Minim’s existence to something less valid than whole. Mengiste’s portrayal of Minim as someone “quiet” and “soft-spoken” who “rarely talks” implies that there is so little to say about him that one must repeat the same quality in three ways (230). His only “strange” identifying trait is his signature “Nothing[ness]” (230). Mengiste thus depicts Minim as unlike the conventional hero.
Minim makes several more appearances throughout the novel, each one equally underwhelming, deepening Mengiste’s exploration of narrative convention so that her later challenge to it is more impactful. When Aklilu and Hirut dance, Mengiste mentions that “Minim’s masinqo…beat[s] out a gentle melody” (182). Even though Minim is the one playing the instrument, the subject of the sentence is “masinqo,” which lends the instrument more emphasis and even agency, as subjects grammatically correspond to verbs (i.e. actions) (182). Mengiste repeats this strategy later, noting “the steady thrum from Minim’s krar” rather than Minim himself (228). Not only is Minim given less emphasis than inanimate objects, but his function in both of these scenes is literally as background noise. Soon after, “Kidane turns toward Minim and stares at the distant hills” suggesting that, even when people look directly at Minim, they do not notice him (229). In this way, Minim is more akin to setting than character; he is that invisible and negligible. Additionally, Minim’s physical location is almost always described relative to that of other, more prominent characters: “Behind [Kidane, Hirut, and Aklilu]” (227), “Above all their heads” (228), “Past Kidane’s shoulder” (229). By syntactically and physically stationing Minim like this, Mengiste denies him a presence that exists independently of others. He is always the second thought, the add-on to someone else’s role. It is also worth noting that Minim is only featured in less than 10 (out of 424) pages.
Having fed the reader notions of convention via the narrative itself, Mengiste then challenges those notions, first by exposing their flawed nature via the novel’s ending. The final passage is from Minim’s point of view, which subtly forces the reader to consider his perspective, perhaps even empathize with this innocuous man: “Minim kneels…with a heavy heart…surrounded by a crowd of worshipers giving thanks for the return of their king” (401). While Minim’s sadness is enough to evoke sympathy, Mengiste’s use of dramatic irony kindles that pity into discomfort for the reader, who, having read the novel thus far, knows about Minim’s pivotal role in the war and the promises of glory made to him by Kidane. Instead of receiving acknowledgment or praise, Minim gets “jostled and pushed” by “a crowd…giving thanks for…their king”—the very people he, as The Shadow King, led to victory (401). This unfairness is no coincidence; it is a metanarrative technique, an invitation to the reader to dislike the narrative Mengiste presents. Through this discrepancy, Mengiste highlights the disparity between Minim’s reality as The Shadow King and his reality now, evoking the reader’s discomfort with the conventional narrative.
Mengiste stirs this discomfort into stronger indignance by exploring Minim’s despair, furthering the reader’s questioning of the conventional narrative’s ethos. Minim is not only plagued by disappointment and unfairness: he must also cope with feelings of loss, an identity crisis, and immense isolation. “Who will remember me?” he asks aloud, receiving “no answer” in return (401). He repeats “Your Majesty” to himself and cries before finally declaring, “I am alone” (401). The fact that Minim repeatedly calls himself “Your Majesty” suggests that he still clings to the identity he must now relinquish (401). This loss becomes even more harrowing when one recalls Kidane’s certainty that Minim would be glorified and remembered. Instead, the only character who remembers The Shadow King is himself. Understandably, after living another person’s life, Minim struggles to feel a sense of self. This identity crisis makes his return to normalcy even more difficult, as he undergoes the rough transition from Emperor and to absolute nobody. It is both a lifestyle shift and a source of cognitive dissonance. Beyond this, Minim experiences extreme isolation on multiple levels. As Minim, he does not merit anyone’s attention or respect; he must talk to himself because nobody else will listen. The uniqueness of his experience means that nobody else shares his burden. The confidentiality of his role means that no external figures can validate his experiences, ground him in reality, and help him grieve his losses. Storytelling convention dictates that this is, in fact, a fitting and realistic ending: the unremarkable character does not receive glory. Yet, having seen all of these misfortunes unleashed on Minim in rapid succession, the reader feels a spark of injustice. By guiding the reader to dissatisfaction with convention, Mengiste subliminally attacks that convention.
Mengiste also challenges conventional storytelling by using structure to undermine content; in ending the novel with Minim’s perspective, she gives him distinction that the narrative itself does not. The final Book ends with the line, “Every day, [Minim] will grow back into himself until he can be who he is: a man was once everything to everyone, then was reborn again to be nothing” (402). Ostensibly, this story concludes by equating Minim to “nothing.” To the other characters, this may be true. However, to the reader, Minim’s value as a character is actually heightened by his unfortunate return to nothingness, as they develop real feelings—sympathy, indignance, pity—for him. Thus, although Mengiste presents a narrative that embodies convention content-wise, she subverts conventions through her structure.
Mengiste makes her final challenge to conventional storytelling via her title, The Shadow King, which, existing outside the narrative, supersedes all conventions within. Naming the novel after Minim undermines all seemingly implacable narrative conventions because Minim’s story encloses the narrative itself. Kidane’s guarantee that Minim will be remembered for generations may be false in the characters’ universe, but it is true in the reader’s and the author’s universe because The Shadow King will be read and repeated by generations. One could even argue that the reader’s truth matters more because it is real, while the story is fictional. In this way, Mengiste pays homage to the unsung heroes of history—the Minims, so to speak—who are typically erased from the narrative.
Ultimately, Mengiste challenges conventional storytelling by constructing a conventional narrative then superseding it. She uses structure and titling to grant unrecognized heroes attention they otherwise would not get, while also criticizing the existing conventions, which unfairly dictate who deserves that attention. While this novel tells stories, of many people, in many ways, it especially serves as a symbol of the unsung. Events can become so distorted through the process of recollection that they change beyond recognition. When only the distorted, glamorized version of an event is preserved, the original story is, effectively, gone. All the story can do is wait until, inevitably, it is forgotten. Mengiste tells stories not to selectively preserve victory or relive expired glory but to remember those who are too often consigned to the abyss of forgetfulness. Nobody is truly Nothing.