Beneath the Lion's Gaze

von Maaza Mengiste

Beneath the Lion¿s Gaze opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974, on the eve of a revolution. Yonas kneels in his mother¿s prayer room, pleading to his god for an end to the violence that has wracked his family and country. His father, Hailu, a prominent doctor, has been ordered to report to jail after helping a victim of state-sanctioned torture to die. And Dawit, Hailu¿s youngest son, has joined an underground resistance movement¿a choice that will lead to more upheaval and bloodshed across a ravaged Ethiopia.

Maaza Mengieste¿s powerful debut tells a gripping story of family and of the bonds of love and friendship set in a time and place that has rarely been explored in fiction. It is a story about the lengths to which human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the human price of a national revolution. Emotionally gripping, poetic and indelibly tragic, Beneath the Lion¿s Gaze is a transcendent story that introduces a powerful new voice.