A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times

March 21, 2022
Ethiopian-American writer Hadero delivers in her illuminating debut collection a series of nuanced perspectives on immigration. In “The Elders,” which takes place during the funeral for an Ethiopian immigrant in Texas, a mourner asks, “Can we really let others define what it means to belong? For any of us?” Hadero excels at creating small moments with high stakes such as these, investigating the minefield of interrelations and frictions her characters face amid competing cultural imperatives. There’s also Getu, the 18-year-old hero of “The Street Sweep,” who seeks an escape from the drudgery of his job in an Ethiopian city and financial stability for himself and his mother. Getu’s hopes are briefly raised by a friendly if deceptive NGO staffer, and the encounter offers a disappointing lesson. In the beautiful title story, two Ethiopian women living in New York City go through recipes from the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, a ritual Hadero describes “as a sort of superstitious offering... to pay homage to this most sacred and difficult task of staying put.” Throughout, Hadero achingly shows how her characters attempt to communicate their regrets, sorrows, and dreams. This assured debut is well worth a look. Agent: Julia Kardon, HG Literary.

Starred review from April 1, 2022
In her debut story collection, Addis Ababa-born Hadero addresses Ethiopian Americans' struggles for acceptance, the painful ties between present and past, and the elusive meaning of home. Raised in the United States and now based in San Francisco, Hadero sets a tone of dizzying displacement from the start in "The Suitcase," in which 20-year-old American Saba visits her birth city of Addis Ababa for the first time. Far from a romantic family reunion, the trip is full of cultural land mines including the one she nearly steps on when relatives and family friends bicker over which of their gifts Saba will bring back to the U.S. In "Mekonnen aka Mack aka Huey Freakin' Newton," set in 1989 in a Brooklyn wracked by racial conflict, sixth grader Mekonnen learns the meaning of pride--and shame--as a member of a group of activist Black kids. And in "Sinkholes," an Ethiopian-born high schooler, the only Black student in his class in rural Florida, is put to an impossible test when his teacher asks students to write racial epithets on the blackboard, thinking this "exercise" is empowering. A full range of stylistic approaches is on display in these stories, from the satirical spin on the odd disappearance of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in 2012 to the magical realism of mysterious "floating houses." Hadero's writing derives great power from her nuanced references to Ethiopia's anguished history, including the atrocities of the Derg military junta. As one character says, survival is about "letting that past move through you and move with you and move you so that it's you deciding for yourself what you're worth." Entertaining and affecting stories with a deft lightness of touch.

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Starred review from April 1, 2022
In this impressive debut collection, award-winning Ethiopian American writer Hadero showcases the lives of displaced people trying to create a space for themselves to call home in America and Ethiopia. In "The Suitcase," Saba visits her relatives in Ethiopia and comes to realize that, though she lives in such a vastly different culture, kindness and family can bridge those differences. An Ethiopian boy new to the American Midwest connects with an older man due to their shared language, German, and refugee past in ""The Wall."" Winner of the 2021 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing, ""The Street Sweep"" introduces street cleaner Getu, who dresses up to attend the farewell party of a foreigner he befriended in hopes of obtaining a job that will save his Addis Ababa home and give him a fresh start. In "Mekonnen aka Mack aka Huey Freakin' Newton," teenage Huey joins an exclusive Brooklyn neighborhood clique and learns harsh lessons about racial divisions and what it means to have pride in who you are. Hadero's powerful stories usher characters along their searches for belonging, often with nothing but hope and a sense of community pushing them forward.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 16, 2022

DEBUT In a year particularly rich with story collections, Ethiopian American author Hadero's debut collection stands out for its evocation of the immigrant experience--it is, in fact, winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing. What's distinctive here are the multiple perspectives Hadero brings to her work. Her stories are set in Ethiopia and the United States, with male and female protagonists struggling in different ways. In Ethiopia, Saba, who has returned from the United States to visit the country of her birth, comes to a generous solution when she finds her bags for the return flight overpacked with gifts from relatives for family abroad. Meanwhile, ambitious, hopeful Getu is sorely disappointed by a feckless NGO staffer who seems to have promised him a big future, but Getu reveals his resourcefulness in the end. In the United States, a teenager from Ethiopia via West Berlin bonds with a German boy who is himself a refugee; they speak the same language in more ways than one, and though they drift apart when the boy's family moves, the significance of the relationship is palpable. Elsewhere, two Ethiopian women in New York discuss recipes as a way to bridge the new country and the old. VERDICT As Saba boards her flight, she looks back, wondering if her relatives "might connect with her one more time," and the need to connect shines throughout this strong collection.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

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