This image is the cover for the book Emperor

Emperor

This account of the rise and fall of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie is “an unforgettable, fiercely comic, and finally compassionate book” (Salman Rushdie, Man Booker Prize–winning author).

After Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974, Ryszard Kapuściński—Poland’s top foreign correspondent—went to Ethiopia to piece together a firsthand account of how the emperor governed his country, and why he finally fell from power. At great risk to himself, Kapuściński interviewed members of the imperial circle who had gone into hiding.

The result is this remarkable book, in which Selassie’s servants and closest associates share accounts—humorous, frightening, sad, grotesque—of a man living amidst nearly unimaginable pomp and luxury while his people teetered between hunger and starvation. It is a classic portrait of authoritarianism, and a fascinating story of a forty-four-year reign that ended with a coup d’état in 1974.

Ryszard Kapuscinski

Ryszard Kapuściński (1932–2007) was born in eastern Poland. After studying Polish history at Warsaw University, he began work as a domestic reporter. Later, as a foreign correspondent for the Polish Press Agency (until 1981), Kapuściński gained critical and popular praise for his coverage of civil wars, revolutions, and social conditions in the Third World. In Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, he ventured into the “bush”—the word that has become his trademark—to search out hidden stories. In addition to his books on the Third World, Kapuściński has written about the Polish provinces and the Asian and Caucasian republics of the Soviet Union. His account of the fall of Haile Selassie, The Emperor, was published to widespread acclaim in many languages. Newsweek named it one of the ten best books of 1983.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (hmhbooks.com)