How Beautiful We Were

Chapter 1

We should have known the end was near. How could we not have known? When the sky began to pour acid and rivers began to turn green, we should have known our land would soon be dead. Then again, how could we have known when they didn t want us to know? When we began to wobble and stagger, tumbling and snapping like feeble little branches, they told us it would soon be over, that we would all be well in no time. They asked us to come to village meetings, to talk about it. They told us we had to trust them.

We should have spat in their faces, heaped upon them names most befitting liars, savages, unscrupulous, evil. We should have cursed their mothers and their grandmothers, flung pejoratives upon their fathers, prayed for unspeakable calamities to befall their children. We hated them and we hated their meetings, but we attended all of them. Every eight weeks we went to the village square to listen to them. We were dying. We were helpless. We were afraid. Those meetings were our only chance at salvation.

We ran home from school on the appointed days, eager to complete our chores so we would miss not one word at the assembly. We fetched water from the well; chased goats and chickens around our compounds into bamboo barns; swept away leaves and twigs scattered across our front yards. We washed iron pots and piles of bowls after dinner; left our huts many minutes before the time the meeting was called for we wanted to get there before they strode into the square in their fine suits and polished shoes. Our mothers hurried to the square too, as did our fathers. They left their work unfinished in the forest beyond the big river, their palms and bare feet dusted with poisoned earth. The work will be there waiting for us tomorrow, our fathers said to us, but we ll only have so many opportunities to hear what the men from Pexton have to say. Even when their bodies bore little strength, after hours of toiling beneath a sun both benevolent and cruel, they

Imbolo Mbue

Sweeping and quietly devastating . . . How Beautiful We Were charts the ways repression, be it at the hands of a government or a corporation or a society, can turn the most basic human needs into radical and radicalizing acts. . . . Profoundly affecting. The New York Times Book Review

What a stunningly beautiful writer Mbue is, and how lucky we are to have her stories in the world. USA Today

It s a heartbreaking and relevant story that seeps into your bones, quickly engulfs you and doesn t let go. The Seattle Times

Superb. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Tragic, wrenching . . . The people of Kosawa sear themselves into your consciousness. The Boston Globe

Imbolo Mbue crafts an aching narrative about greed, community and perseverance. Time

Mbue s remarkable storytelling makes this book shine. Ms.

This epic and empathetic saga shines a truthful albeit unflattering light on globalization. Shelf Awareness

Insightful, heart-stirring. The Philadelphia Inquirer

A generation of narrative voices, many of them children, shape this sweeping, elegiac story of capitalism, colonialism, and boundless greed, reminding us of the myriad ways we fail to make a better world for our children. Esquire

A David and Goliath story for our times, a riveting tale of how people coming together to make change can topple even the fiercest, best-financed foe. O: The Oprah Magazine
 
Imbolo Mbue s revelatory novel of a fictional African village ruined by Big Oil is a mighty addition to the stacks. Elle
 
Among the many virtues of Mbue s novel is the way it uses an ecological nightmare to frame a vivid and stirring picture of human beings asserting their value to the world, whether the world cares about them or not. One can both grieve for Kosawa and be inspired by its determined fight for life. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
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