Beneath the Lions Gaze, Maaza Mengiste
Beneath the Lions Gaze, Maaza Mengiste
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Beneath the Lion's Gaze
A Novel

Author: Maaza Mengiste

Narrator: Steven Crossley

Unabridged: 10 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/25/2010

Synopsis

This memorable, heartbreaking story 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.

Beneath the Lion's Gaze tells a gripping story of family, of the bonds of love and friendship set in a time and place that has rarely been explored in fiction before. It is a story about the lengths 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 and powerful debut.

About Maaza Mengiste

Maaza Mengiste was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and graduated with an M.F.A. in creative writing from New York University. A recent Pushcart Prize nominee, she was named "New Literary Idol" by New York Magazine. Her work has appeared in the Baltimore Review, Ninth Letter, and 42opus; has been translated and published into German and Romanian for Lettre International; and can be found in the anthology Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race, Place and Time. A recipient of fellowships from the Prague Summer Program, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo, she currently lives in New York.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim on June 11, 2022

This novel is set in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, in the late 1970’s. It’s the last days of Christian Emperor Haile Selassie who successfully led the fight against Mussolini’s soldiers - spears vs. tanks. Ethiopia today is still two-thirds Christian (Coptic) and one-third Moslem. But now a......more

Goodreads review by Terryn on December 04, 2013

Let’s be real here – a lot of what we (Westerners) know of Ethiopia is based on those late night aid commercials soliciting support for starving children with distended bellies and flies swarming their faces. This is incredibly problematic. Maaza Mengiste’s “Beneath The Lion’s Gaze” flies in the fac......more

Goodreads review by Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer on December 17, 2020

He recognises those eyes, that face. Dr Hailu: the famed physician from Black Lion Hospital … I operated on a boy, Hailu repeats. He is controlling himself with difficulty. Just a child. One of those protestors who wants to pretend he’s a soldier …… from The Shadow King This book was the debut nov......more

Goodreads review by Zanna on November 13, 2015

This book has a tone and the best word I have for it is sombre. I felt Mengiste's Ethiopia to be grand, dignified, ancient, steeped in its rich mythopoesis. The graceful prose seems to move glacially from idea to idea, image to image, never becoming fevered or fragmenting as its subjects do. The seg......more

Goodreads review by Mwalimu on September 10, 2020

I had this book for a really long time but never got round to reading it. Now that I'm done I'm kinda wondering why it took me so long. The book is about the Ethiopian revolution as seen through the eyes of a fictional family in the time period. The author goes to great lengths to get the reader to......more

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