Held at a Distance

Haile's memoir traces her family's emigration from Ethiopia to the United States in the mid-1970s, a journey that led to her return 25 years later. The author's father was an academic who served in the Ethiopian parliament after the coup that toppled Emperor Haile Selassie. However, he was persecuted under the new regime, which forced him and his family (Haile was 11 years old at the time) to flee to the United States and eventually to central Minnesota. The book is chiefly about Haile's return to Ethiopia, as she attempts to reconcile and process the harsh realities and issues that still plague the country and her relatives who continue to live there.