Like Father Like Son
Based on the True Story of an Ethiopian Prince Who Refused to Surrender His Soul
In 1868, seven-year-old Prince Alemayehu Tewodros stood in the ruins of Magdala fortress and watched the British Empire destroy everything he knew. His father, Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, chose death over captivity-firing the pistol Queen Victoria had sent as a diplomatic gift. His mother followed him to the grave within months. The boy was taken to England as a "rescued orphan," proof that British civilization could transform anyone.
For seven years, Alemayehu was educated in England's finest schools, dressed in British uniforms, trained to serve imperial interests. He met Queen Victoria. He studied at Sandhurst Military Academy. He learned to speak perfect English, to eat with proper etiquette, to march in formation like a British soldier.
But he never forgot who he was.
His body refused what his mind had been forced to accept.
As Alemayehu came of age, trapped between the Ethiopian identity he couldn't abandon and the English future others demanded, his health began to fail. No doctor could diagnose what was killing him. Because what he suffered wasn't a disease-it was the accumulated weight of seven years spent being erased.
Like Father, Like Son is the true story of impossible choices: between survival and sovereignty, between gratitude and grief, between becoming who others need you to be and remaining who you are. It's a story of the British Museum displaying his father's crown as a trophy while the son starved for home. Of a Queen who loved him but couldn't see him. Of a boy who carried two empires on shoulders too young to bear them.
Based on historical records, royal correspondence, and the testimony of those who knew him, this is the story history tried to bury-of an Ethiopian prince who died at eighteen in Windsor Castle, far from home, but who never surrendered the one thing they couldn't take by force:
His identity.
Like father, like son. Both refusing to kneel. Both choosing freedom even when freedom meant death.
Perfect for readers who loved:
The Burial by Courtney EllisThe Book Thief by Markus ZusakHalf of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieWashington Black by Esi EdugyanHomegoing by Yaa GyasiContent Note: This book contains themes of parental death, colonialism, racism, illness, grief, cultural erasure, and the death of the protagonist. Reader discretion advised.
"He died a stranger, as he had lived a stranger." - Inscription on Prince Alemayehu's grave, Windsor Castle
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