Queen of Flowers and Pearls

"Gabriella Ghermandi is one of the authors most invested in exploring the postcolonial dimension of contemporary Italian multiculturalism, and she is to my knowledge the only one who has taken on Italy's occupation of Ethiopia as the subject of fiction."—Allison Van Deventer, Harvard University

"Gabriella Ghermandi is part of an increasingly larger group of so-called Italian 'migrant writers' coming from Africa, Asia, and Latin America who, since the early 1990s, have contributed to Italian culture and language . . . though their input has not been without contention within Italian academia and its canons."—Clarissa Cló

"Ghermandi's patient, rhapsodic compilation reflects Mahlet's own struggle with her identity as an Ethiopian and, when she relocates to Italy for her education, as a foreigner . . . This singular coming-of-age story defined by political upheaval and ancestral secrets introduces a sensitive, perceptive storyteller on the brink of womanhood."—Kirkus Reviews

"Queen of Flowers and Pearls is a wonderful, absorbing new novel that is part of IU Press' Global African Voices. . . [R]eaders can be assured that Mahlet will finally discover herself and her place in the world in the course of some gratifyingly suspenseful chapters."—

"[A] heart-wrenchingly beautiful novel."—Perspectives on History

"Ghermandi weaves personal memory into collective history. . . . Queen of Flowers and Pearls offers a guiding perspective to help us form questions and seek answers from the present as well as the past. Perhaps most hopefully, it makes us consider the current repression in light of the past victories of the Ethiopian citizenry."—Washington Post