Here are some @Reuters clips that amplify the story. Below: the emperor celebrating the 33rd anniversary of the end of Italian occupation, May 1974.
As the book shows, 1974 was a year of ferment. The army mutinied in February; & thereafter political dissidents, trade unions & mutinous soldiers formed a common front.
Below: students at Haile Selassie Univ on a hunger strike, demanding release of imrpisoned mutineers.
More on the political ferment of the time: army veterans march to demand higher pensions, April 1974.
There was a general strike in March, which ended when Haile Selassie dismissed his government and appointed a new PM.
Here's a rather dramatic clip of the emperor meeting with the strikers.
On 16 August the army stripped the emperor of his council and his court of justice. Soldiers paraded through the streets of Addis Ababa, and were met with cheering, joyful crowds heralding the emperor's overthrow.
On 11 Sept. the army removed Haile Selassie as emperor of Ethiopia. Tanks were posted outside the gates of the palace.
Here's a clip showing Selassie's undignified ouster--he was apparently taken away in a VW Beetle, a moment that @MaazaMengiste describes in the book.
In the wake of Haile Selassie's ouster the new military government nationalised all of the emperor's property.
Here's a clip showing a special committee making an inventory, Nov. 1974.
The former emperor died in 1975, while under house arrest. His body was apparently buried beneath a toilet in the palace.
He was given a funeral in 2000. Here's a fascinating set of photographs by Peter Marlow, who was there.
prm.ox.ac.uk/event/the-buri…