Held at a Distance - Rebecca Haile

This is the story of a woman, exiled from Derg-oppressed Ethiopia as a young girl, who returns as a woman. She brings American education and social upbringing together with a lingering Ethiopian consciousness to look at modern Ethiopia.

I checked this book out of the library because I thought it would shed some light on raising an Ethiopian child in America, without realizing that Haile was a refugee rather than an adoptee. However the synthesis of her thoughtful introspection and her astute insight into matters of race, language, and culture proved to be very enlightening.

This memoir is a rare chance to look at Ethiopia through two sets of eyes simultaneously as well as being a trove of practical information on the country. Haile would be worth reading for all of the above reasons, but her concise, elegant prose and fluid storytelling offer the bonus of making it's pages a pure pleasure to turn.

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