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Maaza Mengiste

Beneath the Lion's Gaze

Beneath the Lion's Gaze

Summary

The powerful debut from 2020 Booker Prize shortlisted author of The Shadow King

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974 - 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.

Emotionally gripping, poetic and indelibly tragic, Beneath the Lion's Gaze is a transcendent story that tells a gripping story of family and of the bonds of love and friendship. 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.