It Was Only Yesterday... - Paperback

by Hannah Mariam Meherete-Selassie (Author)

Hannah Mariam Meherete-Selassie's book, It was Only Yesterday... is an insider's story about life as a royal teenager and growing up in the Jubilee Palace in Africa's first royal family under the protective eyes of her great grand-father Emperor Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lion of Judah, and Elect of God. In February 1974, her privileged life comes to an abrupt end with the advent of a bloody upheaval which overthrows her great grand-father's government and lands her mother and close family in a rotting Communist jail. By this time Hannah Mariam has fled to United Kingdom where she is granted status as a refugee. Interested in writing from a very young age, her first book It was Only Yesterday offers unique insights about the hardship she faced growing up in a new setting and how she effectively managed change and uncertainty. It was Only Yesterday is a delightful account of her interactions with friends and family in the backdrop of the intricate world of imperial protocol and palace politics. The book's narrative is based on diaries kept over the past forty-three years, a collection of family photographs, informal chats and interviews, generational stories, and researching academic books about her great grand-father and family. A promising new author, her readers will enjoy how she has interwoven personal experiences with firsthand knowledge of her great grand-father, one of the world's longest reigning monarchs and an important historical figure in Ethiopian, African and world history. The book's memoire genre will appeal to all, in particular to those interested in understanding the cultural, social, political and historical ramifications of pre-socialist Ethiopia of 1974.

Author Biography

Hannah Mariam Meherete-Selassie was born on February 23, 1961 in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. She is the great-grand-daughter of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. She shares her insights about life in a privileged family and the advent of a bloody uprising in 1974 that abruptly ends a three thousand year old royal dynasty that traces its lineage to the legendary King Solomon and Queen of Sheba. She flees to the United Kingdom and while at school learns that her mother, and close family are thrown into a rotting jail and that her great grand-father is brutally murdered. After the military junta unleashed a wave of atrocities during the "Red Terror" which purged all political opponents, Hannah Mariam finally abandons hope of seeing her mother and returning home. She crisscrosses three continents to overcome hardship before establishing a new start in the United States. Her life story is testimony to her inner strength, resilient character and personality. Her professional career as a public speaker, professor of communication, marketing consultant and coach enriches her teaching in and outside of the classroom. She derives inspiration from her hobbies of abstract drawing and painting. She uses the memoire genre to increase awareness of self and others. She calls for a new understanding of truth, justice, peace and reconciliation between diverse communities divided on ethnic and racial lines.