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Beneath the Lion's Gaze

by Maaza Mengiste · 2010

An epic tale of a father and two sons, of betrayals and loyalties, of a family unraveling in the wake of Ethiopia’s revolution. This memorable, heartbreaking story opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974, on the eve of a… more

11 quotes ★ 3.96 (3,958) Fiction

Quotes from the Book

When you are convinced that everything that happens is the will of God, what is there to do but wait until God has mercy?
20
We must not be anything other than what we are.
11
The nature of love is to kill for it, or to die.
5
A government of fighters won't know how to lead, only create more war. You think bravery is measured in resistance.
4
How many shots had to be fired to turn this child back to his home and anxious mother?
3
The rich think this land is theirs though they have never earned the right to call it theirs.
2
Those who are dead aren’t worth dying for.
1
All was normal, Hailu knew without looking, he could understand the body's silent language without the help of machinery. Years of practice had taught him how to decipher what most patients couldn't articulate. These days were teaching him more: that the frailty of our bodies stems from the heart and travels to the brain. That what the body feels and thinks determines the way it stumbles and falls.
1
Tizita,” a melancholy tune of memory and home.
Who’s left to rule if everyone’s in jail.
Hailu had the appearance of a man dragging death with him through life.

About Maaza Mengiste

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About the book

An epic tale of a father and two sons, of betrayals and loyalties, of a family unraveling in the wake of Ethiopia’s revolution.

This memorable, heartbreaking story opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974, on 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. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze tells a gripping story of family, of the bonds of love and friendship set in a time and place that has rarely been explored in fiction. It is a story about the lengths human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the

Book details

First published
2010
Genre
Fiction
Goodreads rating
3.96 (4k ratings)

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