Maaza Mengiste's Beneath The Lion's Gaze

Written By: Nicole Parker Jones—Maaza Mengiste whose writing has earned her accolades such as “New Literary Idol” by New York Magazine and a Pushcart Prize nomination has published her first book, Beneath The Lion's Gaze. If you're looking for a piece of historical fiction (Beneath The Lion's Gaze depicts in part the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie), this "epic tale of a father and two sons, of betrayals and loyalties, of a family unraveling in the wake of Ethiopia's revolution" should be right up your alley.

Here's what we know about the book which will be released in the US today and in the UK on March 11:

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 before. It is a story about the lengths human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the human price of a national revolution. Emotionally gripping, poetic and indelibly tragic, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze is a transcendent and powerful debut.

You can find out more about Beneath The Lion's Gaze and read an excerpt by visiting maazamengiste.com.