In a fantastic version of 19th-century Ethiopia, the rich and powerful Count Ashenafi petitions God for a child, resulting in the birth of a daughter, Aster. In an effort to protect her, Count Ashenafi seals her away. In solitude, the unsocialized child never learns the physical limitations of this world, and soon she is walking through walls and reading people’s minds. When Aster finally learns how to be human, she again does the unimaginable and falls in love with a slave, a young man named Gudu. With a price on his head for bewitching his owner’s child, Gudu enlists the help of the Ammas, rebel followers of a new religion that seeks to break down class barriers. Before the lovers’ story plays out, there will be bitter betrayals, fortunes lost and gained, and bloody battles between the old and the new.

One of the most enjoyable features of Nega Mezlekia’s first novel, The God Who Begat a Jackal, is its sly humour. Mezlekia’s social satire is pointed and witty. He deftly examines class and gender roles from a unique cultural perspective, and the world he fashions is painted in imaginative sensory detail.

The story’s structure is less successful. The action meanders from one plotline to another, and leans heavily on secondhand reportage and limited omniscience, giving the novel an appropriately antique feel, but one that often keeps the reader at a distance. It is not until fully a third of the way into the novel before we’re really let in on Aster’s point of view, yet she is presented as the heroine.

The God Who Begat a Jackal is a qualified success. Read it for its irreverent political humour, its world-building, and its insight into gender and class. With a vision as broad as Mezlekia’s, there is much to look forward to.