, but since the 1980s he has lived in Canada so speaks and writes in English.
Nega was born in
Wageningen University
. After two years in the Netherlands he was still unable to return home so moved to Canada instead. He has still never returned to Ethiopia.
He recounted his life story in his first book, Notes from the Hyena's Belly. Published in 2000, his book won the
Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction
that same year.
Mezlekia followed it up with the novel The God Who Begat a Jackal, which concerns an old Ethiopian myth. In 2006 his third book The Unfortunate Marriage of Azeb Yitades came out.
Set in the period 1960 to 1990, it tells the tale of a small village in eastern Ethiopia struggling to maintain its identity and heritage as the modern world encroaches on its isolation.[2] It was shortlisted as Best Book for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, 2007.[3]
Controversy
Shortly after Mezlekia's award win for Notes from the Hyena's Belly, poet and editor
The resulting controversy led to considerable debate in the Canadian press, with most critics acknowledging that it can be extremely difficult to clearly determine how much of a role an editor can take in shaping a text before they should properly be credited as a coauthor.[5] Several scholarly theses on the nature and limits of the author/editor relationship have cited the Mezlekia case.[6][7]
