Quote by Maaza Mengiste: “A photograph is never just an image; it is also an act of witness.”

A photo is more than a picture of something. It is someone choosing to look, to record, to insist that this moment — this face, this place, this event — will not be erased. Taking a photograph is a moral act: a refusal to let something disappear as if it never happened.

Mengiste made this observation while writing and researching The Shadow King, which was published in 2019. In a global media landscape flooded with images, questions about what photography means as an act of power, memory, and testimony were deeply urgent, particularly regarding African histories rendered invisible in Western archives.

Ethiopian-American novelist and essayist whose 2020 novel The Shadow King, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, explored the Ethiopian resistance to Mussolini's invasion. She is known for her work on visual history, memory, and African women's experiences of war. She teaches at Queens College, CUNY.