“We are More Than This”: Counterhistories and Female Voices in Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King

Abstract

In this essay, I examine the potential of the counterfactual framework in retelling obscured or misrepresented stories of women in African wartime narratives. I analyse Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King (2019), which uses the Second Italo-Ethiopian War as a foundation for its narrative. I argue that the novel challenges dominant male-authored accounts of nationalist histories by presenting alternative versions — counterfacts — that disrupt the linear progression of nationalist History and highlight women’s roles and experiences during the war. I draw upon Catherine Gallagher’s conceptualisation of counterfactuals as ‘counterhistories’ and Gerald Prince’s notion of ‘disnarration.’ These elements enable Mengiste to offer alternative perspectives on the war, putting women’s experiences at the forefront. By reading the text as a counterfactual novel, we can establish a dialogue and comparison between historical accounts and the fictional worlds of women’s historical novels, differentiating between what is factual and what is obscured or elided. Consequently, I contend that counterfactuals provide a way to uncover previously overlooked spaces, revealing the presence and absence of women’s histories and exposing History as incomplete, inaccurate, and deficient in certain aspects — a myth.