Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros

Wendy Laura Belcher is associate professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of Abyssinia's Samuel Johnson and Honey from the Lion: An African Journey. Michael Kleiner is a historian of Ethiopia and a translator. He has taught at the universities of Gottingen, Marburg, and Hamburg, as well as at Addis Ababa University.

• *Frontmatter, pg. A*Contents, pg. v*Abbreviations, pg. xi*Chronology, pg. xiii*Preface, pg. xvii*Acknowledgments, pg. xxxiii*Introduction to the Text, pg. 1*Manuscripts of the Text and Earlier Translations, pg. 49*Introduction to the Translation of the Text, pg. 61*The Ethiopian Script and Its Transcription, pg. 72*Introduction, pg. 77*Chapter 1: The Author's Worthiness - Chapter 50: The Mother of Our Mother Dies, pg. 78*Chapter 51: Our Mother Raises the Monk Silla Kristos from the Dead - Chapter 92: Our Mother Departs to Eternal Life, pg. 190*Alternate Ending of the Gadla Walatta Petros, pg. 271*The Translation of the Miracles of Walatta Petros (ta'amera Walatta Petros), pg. 273*Summaries of Additional Miracles of Walatta Petros (ta'amera Walatta Petros), pg. 335*Summary of the Short History of Walatta Petros's Community (in MSS I and J only), pg. 349*The Translation of the Poem Portrait of Walatta Petros (Malke'a Walatta Petros), pg. 353*The Translation of the Poem Hail to Walatta Petros (Salamta Walatta Petros), pg. 381*Colophons, pg. 391*Appendix: Manuscript Folio Missing From the Conti Rossini print edition (From MS J), pg. 393*Glossary: People, Places, and Terms in the Text, pg. 395*Works cited, pg. 471*Index, pg. 487

Winner of the 2015 Best Scholarly Edition in Translation, Society for the Study of Early Modern Women "By 2050, Africans will constitute around a third of the world's Christian population, roughly a billion people, and over a hundred million of those will live in Ethiopia. As we confront that new reality, the need to rediscover those African cultural and spiritual roots becomes imperative. The story of Walatta Petros is a wonderful contribution to this task."--Philip Jenkins, Books & Culture "This richly informative book is unexpected in many ways... In following the dramatic main narrative, we learn about the customs and faith of the great Ethiopian church, all of which is profoundly important for understanding that tradition as it exists today."--Philip Jenkins, Christian Century