The history of a difficult child
Sibhat, Mihret2024
Book
Selam is the youngest child in her large, turbulent family. Even before she is born, her electrifying omniscience animates life in her Small Town in 1980s southwestern Ethiopia. She arrives like a flash flood; unexpected, strong-willed, roaring. Selam and her father listen to the radio in secret as the socialist military junta seizes properties and wages civil war in the North. Meanwhile her mother, the powerful and relentlessly dignified Degitu, embraces a persecuted, Pentecostal God as she gets sicker. Once an enterprising, landowning family, now they are ostracised under the new regime, and Selam grows up seeking revenge on despotic comrades, neighbourhood bullies and a ruthless God. Wise beyond her years yet thoroughly naive, she contends with an inner fury, a profound sadness, and a throbbing, unstoppable pursuit of education, freedom, and love.
Main title:
The history of a difficult child / Mihret Sibhat.
Author:
Sibhat, Mihret, author
Imprint:
London : Chatto & Windus, 2024.
Collation:
384 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN:
9781784744373 (hbk)
Dewey class:
813.6GEN
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
713878