Children of the Revolution

Dinaw Mengestu author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:22nd May '08

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Children of the Revolution cover

A haunting debut by gifted young Ethiopian-American author and winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2007

Seventeen years after fleeing the revolutionary Ethiopia that claimed his father's life, Sepha Stephanos is a man still caught between two existences: the one he left behind, aged nineteen, and the new life he has forged in Washington D.C.

Seventeen years after fleeing the revolutionary Ethiopia that claimed his father's life, Sepha Stephanos is a man still caught between two existences: the one he left behind, aged nineteen, and the new life he has forged in Washington D.C. Sepha spends his days in a sort of limbo: quietly running his grocery store into the ground, revisiting the Russian classics, and toasting the old days with his friends Kenneth and Joseph, themselves emigrants from Africa.

But when a white woman named Judith moves next door with her only daughter, Naomi, Sepha's life seems on the verge of change...

A quietly accomplished debut novel... Despite, or perhaps because of, the attritions of his years in exile, Sepha has remained astonishingly tender. In the end, it is this human warmth that triumphs * Guardian *
Brilliant... a courageous and engaging novel * Daily Telegraph *
With faultless pitch and tone, this elegiac first novel packs great matters into its modest span * Independent *
A quietly brilliant portrait of immigrant life... Children of the Revolution reads like an Ethopian variation on The Great Gatsby. Remarkably it's not diminished by this comparison * Financial Times *
A rich and lyrical story of displacement and loneliness. I was profoundly moved by this tale of an Ethiopian immigrant's search for acceptance, peace, and identity... Mengestu makes us feel this tortured soul's longings, regrets, and in the end, his dreams of meaningful human connection -- Khaled Hosseini * The Kite Runner *
Dinaw Mengestu belongs to that special group of American voices produced by global upheavals and intentional, if sometimes forced, migrations... The most interesting work in American literature has often been done by such writers * Los Angeles Times Book Review *
Sharp and moving * The Times *
An impressive and moving debut * Spectator *
The immigrant's plight is sensitively captured... But this is not a story of hopelessness - rather, it's the gritty determination and the dark wit...and perspicacity with which Sepha can view his adopted homeland that make this a rich, moving read -- Siobhan Murphy * Metro *

  • Winner of Guardian First Book Award 2007 (UK)

ISBN: 9780099502739

Dimensions: 198mm x 131mm x 14mm

Weight: 172g

240 pages