Of Beetles and Angels

by Mawi Asgedom

Book Description

When he was four years old, Asgedom's family left their war-ravaged home in Ethiopia. They spent three years in a Sudanese refugee camp before coming to the U.S. in 1983, where they were settled by World Relief in a wealthy white suburb near Chicago. He later earned a full scholarship to Harvard, where in 1999 he delivered the commencement address. His simple lyrical narrative, both wry and tender, stays true to the child's viewpoint as he grows up, taunted at school, but pretty bad and rough himself. His coming-of-age story is both darkened and enriched by the stories he hears about his parents' lives back home and by the pieces he remembers. At the center of the book is his father, a fierce family disciplinarian, once an all-powerful medical assistant at home, now reduced to a "beetle," unemployed, half-blind, raging at his dependency. Only at the very end, when Asgedom spells out the metaphor of the title, does the message overwhelm the story. What stays with you is the quiet, honest drama of a family's heartrending journey.

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