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He left Ethiopia due to events in the 1980s. Although he initially supported the revolution against Emperor Haile Selassie he grew strongly critical of the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam . In 1983 he left on an engineering scholarship in the Netherlands . After two years in the Netherlands he was still unable to return home so moved to Canada instead. He has still never returned to Ethiopia.

He recounted his life story in ''Notes From the Hyena's Belly''. His first book, it won the Governor General's Award For English Language Non-fiction in 2000 . However, it later became controversial, when writer and editor Anne Stone alleged that she had Ghostwritten most of the book.

Mezlekia followed it up with the novel ''The God Who Begat a Jackal'', which concerns an old Ethiopian myth. Although he still is a practicing engineer he indicates that he misses that sense of myth and spirituality from his youth.


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