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 expulsion from Uganda from Kololo Hill, not to mention the birth of my country Bangladesh from as early as I could read) The aftermath is a nation trying to embrace communism. The civilian protest with which the book started sounded very familiar to the July 2024 uprising here in Bangladesh. And the post-revolution reaction is also very similar—the younger generation is excited about what’s next, but the older generation regrets change.

Well, I thought the closeness of the revolutions would make me love the story. But to keep up with a novel, I need a stronger connection. In this book, I missed growing a connection to any character. It seemed to me that the characters grew out of a story of a political past of Ethiopia. In my favorite historical fiction, history merely crosses the paths of the characters; I already know the characters; the characters were not forcibly created to act in the war/history. Take Half of a Yellow Sun, or my favorite book on Iran’s revolution The House of the Mosque—nothing prepared me for what was coming. I was happily reading the characters’ journey, getting attached to their lands, exploring their culture, and then suddenly people’s lives started to be affected by politics or wars. I missed the personal connection in Beneath the Lion’s Gaze.

I just remembered a great read from Africa's Liberia, a short story by Anthony Doerr The Caretaker from his collection The Shell Collector. I absolutely adored that story. One of my favorite short stories of all time. I did not get to know a lot about Ethiopia, but I felt very close to the protagonist, I weeped with him, I hoped with him!

Hoping that I will be able to catch more stories from Africa and feel closer!

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