How Beautiful We Were Audiobook By Imbolo Mbue cover art

How Beautiful We Were

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Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, How Beautiful We Were tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations to the villagers are made-and ignored. The country's government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest only. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. But their fight will come at a steep price, one which generation after generation will have to pay.

Told through the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community's determination to hold onto its ancestral land and a young woman's willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people's freedom.

©2020 Imbolo Mbue (P)2020 Canongate Books Ltd Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

"A formidable storyteller." (Jonathan Franzen)
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This is the first book of Imbolo Mbue that I read. This story was beautifully written and narrated. Imbolo Mbue had me hocked from the beginning. So much emotion, pain, love, commitment, tradition.

An Amazing Story

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Yes this is an important story- of our time- but more importanly it is delivered excellently. I have never read such beautifully articulated female characters, especially older 'widowed' women. Some passages were so beautiful I am prompted to buy a hard copy of the book so that I can read and reread them.

Beautifully written, beautifully read

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