Beneath The Lion's Gaze
Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste My rating: 2 of 5 stars I have read very few books on Africa. I liked Half of a Yellow Sun a lot. Other than that, I have had mostly hit and miss with African fiction. I read two from Abdulrazak Gurnah , and they were beautiful stories except too distant for me to engage fully. So I thought reading more books would close the gap between African authors and me. But I have been having a hard time building the story in my head—what are they eating, is this a Muslim name or a Christian one, what kind of dress I should picture—without the pre-context of Africa. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze is set in the late 70s in Ethiopia. The book started with the 1974 civilian/student protest, which turned into a military mutiny. (The world was crazy in the 70s right? I keep knowing the world around that time from historical fictions, Nigeria-Biafra history from Half of a Yellow Sun , Iran’s revolution from The House of the Mosque , Idi Amin’s Asian expulsio...
