0:00:01 > 0:00:06One of the people seem to be targeted in that particular attack!
0:00:06 > 0:00:07Now it's time for Meet The Author.
0:00:07 > 0:00:09Aida Edemariam has written an unusual biography -
0:00:09 > 0:00:12a rich and engrossing story of a woman of whom none
0:00:12 > 0:00:14of her readers will ever have heard.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17The Wife's Tale is the story of her own grandmother,
0:00:17 > 0:00:21born 100 years ago, and a picture of her country, Ethiopia.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24It reads beautifully, as if it's told in her voice,
0:00:24 > 0:00:26a book that will take you gently and unforgettably
0:00:26 > 0:00:28into another world.
0:00:28 > 0:00:38Welcome.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52What was the quality of this story, the potential in this story,
0:00:52 > 0:00:56that convinced you that people who had never known your grandmother
0:00:56 > 0:01:00and have never been to Ethiopia would want to read it?
0:01:00 > 0:01:03It was listening to her, it was listening to her language,
0:01:03 > 0:01:06her words, her stories.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10I kind of knew that they would translate quite well into English
0:01:11 > 0:01:15and that they would work.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19You spoke to her and recorded her over a long period.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22I mean, not continuously, but you heard her talking.
0:01:22 > 0:01:23And what's striking about the book is that,
0:01:23 > 0:01:27although it's narrated by you, it's told by you, the rhythms
0:01:27 > 0:01:32and cadences of her language, the poetry of her language,
0:01:32 > 0:01:35the simple poetry of normal day speech, really comes through,
0:01:35 > 0:01:37and that's what's alluring about it.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40And that's really what convinced you?
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Yes, it really did.
0:01:43 > 0:01:44There are a couple of things.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47One of them is it's an oral tradition.
0:01:47 > 0:01:52She didn't read until she was in her 60s.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55In an oral tradition, stories are remembered and told again.
0:01:55 > 0:01:58In Ethiopia, the effect and the skill with which you tell
0:01:58 > 0:02:00a story is really important.
0:02:00 > 0:02:03The other thing that's obvious to anyone who approaches
0:02:03 > 0:02:06the book is, of course, that it's set in a country which has
0:02:06 > 0:02:14gone through huge convulsions in the century of the life that
0:02:14 > 0:02:16you mentioned - she died five years ago.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19Let's just go through that because the world
0:02:19 > 0:02:22that she grew up in - there was going to be a fascist
0:02:22 > 0:02:25invasion, there were going to be various political upheavals,
0:02:25 > 0:02:28the Haile Selassie years that we all remember, and,
0:02:28 > 0:02:32I suppose, to the current generation at home, the famines
0:02:32 > 0:02:37in the Horn of Africa, which have been such a crisis.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41So it was always going to be a troubled life.
0:02:41 > 0:02:46Yes, but there's always pockets of joy and, for her, dancing.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48And you tell stories and you find little pockets where you can
0:02:48 > 0:02:50chat and enjoy things.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53In a way, it's a story of perseverance and survival.
0:02:53 > 0:02:58It is, and those big things happen to ordinary people, and history's
0:02:58 > 0:03:00lived by ordinary people.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03And I guess that's one of the things I was trying to get across.
0:03:03 > 0:03:05You talk about the fact that your grandmother didn't learn
0:03:05 > 0:03:07to read until she was in her 60s.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11Can you really imagine what life was like for her
0:03:11 > 0:03:14when she was a teenager, when she was in her 20s?
0:03:14 > 0:03:16Do you find it easy to picture?
0:03:16 > 0:03:24It took a while.
0:03:24 > 0:03:26I had maybe 60 hours of tape.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31I listened, and then I went away and read lots in the British Library
0:03:31 > 0:03:34and read accounts of daily life, and then I went back
0:03:34 > 0:03:37and listened again.
0:03:37 > 0:03:43When you've got that lairing, you can start imagine just the sort
0:03:43 > 0:03:45the sort of warp and weft of it.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48Because it's quite clear, in the way she must have talked to you,
0:03:48 > 0:03:51that the descriptive richness of it was considerable -
0:03:51 > 0:03:55I mean, the plants, the animals, the sky and so on.
0:03:56 > 0:03:57She was like that.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59The way she described cooking, for example,
0:04:00 > 0:04:03it was incredibly detailed.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06So there's a sort of party that happened every year, it was massive,
0:04:06 > 0:04:09and it took up a lot of her life.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13So the drama would be in describing how you make meat.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16That was where it was located and therefore I had to try
0:04:16 > 0:04:19and recreate that somehow.
0:04:19 > 0:04:24And, also, the shocks to daily life that came about from political
0:04:24 > 0:04:28events that were sometimes really very distant.
0:04:28 > 0:04:33They are distant, but they always have ripples, and sometimes
0:04:33 > 0:04:37quite unexpected ripples.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41And, I guess, that was kind of what I was trying to catch,
0:04:41 > 0:04:44it was one of the things that, you know, she might be distant but,
0:04:44 > 0:04:47another moment, she'd be very close, like very close to the Emperor -
0:04:47 > 0:04:48trying to petition him, for example.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51So you are talking about a world that we can only know
0:04:51 > 0:04:52in our imaginations.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55And yet, what you've been able to do, from these conversations,
0:04:55 > 0:05:00I think, is to create something which is very real.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02I mean, you can smell the food.
0:05:02 > 0:05:07I grew up there.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10Your father's Ethiopian, your mother is Canadian.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13With the food, the food continued.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16In rural Ethiopia, the life is not that different,
0:05:16 > 0:05:20necessarily, that it was, you know, 100 years ago,
0:05:20 > 0:05:251,000 years ago, even.
0:05:25 > 0:05:30It was almost an excuse to go back to my childhood and get the feel
0:05:30 > 0:05:33and smell and touch of things.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35People will come to conclusions about your grandmother
0:05:35 > 0:05:39as they read the book, but what's your assessment of how
0:05:39 > 0:05:43she felt about her youth and about the circumstances
0:05:43 > 0:05:44of her growing up?
0:05:44 > 0:05:47Because it seems that she was a person of great
0:05:47 > 0:05:50calm and few regrets.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52Is that fair?
0:05:52 > 0:05:55I think, when stuff happens to you so early, and when it
0:05:55 > 0:06:00happens across the culture, there is an acceptance of it
0:06:00 > 0:06:02and an unquestioning of it.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05So any questions came much later.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09I think she regretted not having been able to read and some
0:06:09 > 0:06:13of the opportunities that she might have had, but she would also say,
0:06:13 > 0:06:15well, that was the way it was.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18It's very, very touching when, at the end, you come
0:06:18 > 0:06:21to her death and, more to the point, her burial.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24It was obviously a very moving experience for you.
0:06:24 > 0:06:25It was.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28I'd never been to a funeral of somebody I knew before,
0:06:28 > 0:06:29apart from anything else.
0:06:29 > 0:06:33It's very visceral.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36And I think Irish culture does something similar where grieving
0:06:36 > 0:06:42is very much allowed and expected, but there are systems.
0:06:42 > 0:06:47She was buried by the church into which she was married.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51And there's a procession, and the priests are
0:06:51 > 0:06:56in their full regalia.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58And the whole town, basically, sees her pass.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01One of the things, finally, that I think is striking about the book -
0:07:01 > 0:07:03you've kept yourself out of it almost entirely.
0:07:03 > 0:07:04Why?
0:07:04 > 0:07:05It wasn't about me.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08It's about somebody who is very different to me.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10And, I think, you can show your working, as it were,
0:07:10 > 0:07:13but then you just get in the way.
0:07:13 > 0:07:15And if I had put myself into it more, I would have
0:07:15 > 0:07:16been explaining it.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19And I just wanted it to exist absolutely on its own terms
0:07:19 > 0:07:22and to come off the page on its own terms.
0:07:22 > 0:07:23That's an interesting answer.
0:07:23 > 0:07:25And, because of your conversations, you felt you could render it
0:07:25 > 0:07:28faithfully as it were, without your intervention.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30I hope so, yes.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33Aida Edemariam, author of The Wife's Tale,
0:07:33 > 0:07:34thank you very much.
0:07:34 > 0:07:44Thank you.