Sepha Stephanos owns a newsagent and general store in a rundown Washington, D.C. neighbourhood that is on the verge of gentrification. Seventeen years ago he fled the Ethiopian revolution after his father was killed. His life now is quiet, he spends his days reading Russian classics, serving the few customers he has and every Thursday evening he meets with his two friends, Joseph and Kenneth, drinking whisky and making jokes about Africa's long line of dictators and revolutions. When a white woman named Judith moves next door with her mixed-race daughter Naomi, Sepha's life seems on the verge of change. His fragile relationship with them gives him a painful glimpse into the life he could have lived and for which he still holds out hope. In an astonishingly assured debut, Dinaw Mengestu writes with powerful understatement of one man's longing for the American dream, and of the tenacious grip of the past across continents and time.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Dinaw Mengestu was born in Ethiopia in 1978 and is a graduate of Georgetown and Columbia universities. He works as a journalist and reviewer and is researching a book tracing his extended family's exile from Ethiopia following the 1974 revolution. Children of the Revolution won the Guardian First Book Award in 2007.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Multilayered Tale,
This review is from: Children of the Revolution. Dinaw Mengestu (Paperback)
The story concerns Stephanos, an Ethiopian refugee from the Red Terror living in DC.His lonely life appears to change when Judith and her daughter Naomi move into Logan Circle. On one level this is a simple tale of unfulfilled love;of a chance at happiness being missed. On another,it is a haunting tale of displacement;of the vulnerability of life itself and the need to reinvent ourselves into new situations. Easily one of the best new writers,Mengestu's book is easy to digest and works on many levels. I look forward to his next book-and wonder which T.Rex song he'll use for the title!!
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