Review: A kid's perspective on Ethiopia's sweeping changes in 'History of a Difficult Child'

Mihret Sibhat's debut novel, "The History of a Difficult Child," begins with elements of a biblical tale. God, "for some reason, is trying to get rid of all the water in His possession." The water falls violently on a small town in southwestern Ethiopia, where a child named Selam Asmelash and her doting father cower and run into their house.

Shaken by thunder and lightning, the father prays to God for forgiveness. Selam, the novel's main narrator, watches as a flood starts to flow beyond the veranda of the house, carrying away almost everything in its path, including a poster of local counterrevolutionary vigilante Comrade Chairman that she had buried out of spite. The sight of the unearthed poster strikes such fear of persecution in Selam that we understand the novel's focus will be as much political as it is familial.

With its easy prose, this is a tale as much about the formerly land-owning Asmelash family as it is about Ethiopia, a socialist-leaning country since a revolution deposed Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. It is also about one family's embrace of their Protestant faith, against the established tide of Orthodox Christianity and anti-Western sentiment.

The novel is told from the point of view of a child, first as an infant and, eventually, not much older than a fifth-grader. The results are mixed, bordering on gimmicky and contrived. But Sibhat, born in Ethiopia and a graduate of the University of Minnesota's creative writing program, has created a memorable character in Selam, who entertains us — and her family of siblings and extended relatives — with her smarts, humor and wily charm.

Born about 10 years after the revolution to Degitu Galata, a former feudal landlady battling a mysterious disease, Selam comes into the world as a surprise sixth child with "an abnormally sized head" and a "terrorist" streak. Hers is not the typical family, because of her educated mother. Despite losing large tracts of land, businesses and homes in the countryside, the family, steered by enterprising Degitu, moves into a sizable house. They open a bar that sells tej, a popular honey wine. They are generally accepted into a community that often regards their kind — old, landed gentry — with suspicion.

Even so, fear and persecution persist, especially after Degitu and a neighbor convert to the Protestant faith and begin to hold Bible study meetings. The family also suffers through tragedy, from which they struggle to recover. "We are a family of criers," Selam confesses, after yet another misfortune strikes, toward the end of the novel.

All the while, Selam observes everything like a kind of all-knowing firebrand, granting us access to a world that churns on spice-filled meals, spats with bullies and brothers and the search for meaning in the midst of death and political instability. Ultimately, this is a sometimes heady, often rowdy mix of a novel that stretches the limits of credibility but delivers its message with humor and brio.

Angela Ajayi is a Minneapolis-based writer and critic.

The History of Difficult Child

By: Mihret Sibhat.

Publisher: Viking, 400 pages, $28.