The book follows a surgeon and his family through the overthrow of the Ethiopian monarchy and its aftermath. It is well-written, with characters who are complex enough that you understand all of their (often vastly different) perspectives and can sympathise with even those you might not expect. It is a fantastic commentary on the ways in which a regime or an idea can become more powerful than- and sometimes counter- the intentions of the people involved in it, and the ways in which both oppressors and oppressed can be similarly fighting for survival. It's certainly a page-turner, and at times a very gruesome one, but the author has a talent for balancing the horror of reality with a profound (but much more gentle) insight into the parallel reality they experience in unconsciousness. It is fictional, but based on true events. Overall I think it offers good (and surprisingly objective) insight into a war I knew nothing about, while respecting the humanity of everyone involved enough not to pass judgement, which seems very gracious to me. Beneath the Lion’s GazeThis is a dreadful novel, made all the more dreadful by the writer’s keen ability to evoke the deadly atmosphere of the Ethiopian Revolution of the 1970s. For if this is, as is apparently the case, a first novel, and notwithstanding the occasional writerly blemish that might remind one of such, it is a text of great strength and subtlety that belies the author’s lack of experience.It cannot have been easy to work through material that echoes so strongly of Kafka, Zamyatin and Solzhenitsyn, and one must pay tribute to the tenacity of any author who was able to stay the journey. Indeed, this excruciating story must have taken a good deal out of her, just as it does her reader – so beware. Yet it is, like those tales of other dark times of the Soviet era, and of more modern ones like Guantanamo, essential and compelling reading.
What do You think about Beneath The Lion's Gaze (2010)?
So sad that this book is based on a true story. Reminds me to be happy that we live in Canada.
—chinnu
It's heart wrenching to know how entire countries have had to endure life because of politics.
—Tonya
Absolutely heartbreaking, but beautifilly written.
—Freddy
