The King of Kings

He was a descendent of King Salomon and a forerunner of African unity and independence. He fought with the Allies against the fascist Axis powers during the Second World War and was the messiah of the Jamaican Rastafarians. He was a reformer and an autocrat, who was assassinated in a communist coup. Haile Selassie, King of Kings, was an equally formidable and iridescent figure, who is brilliantly portrayed by his grandnephew Asfa-Wossen Asserate. Asserate spent his childhood and adolescence in Ethiopia before fleeing the revolution of 1974. The author, who knew the emperor personally, gained intimate insights into life at the imperial court and the increasingly controversial politics of Haile Selassie. Due to his own experiences and painstaking research in family and public archives, Prince Asserate has achieved an exceedingly colourful portrait of the emperor and the tumultuous history of Ethiopia.