Someone Like Us

“Someone Like Us is meticulously constructed and its genius doesn’t falter even slightly under scrutiny. . . . it’s the book that ought to cement Mengestu’s reputation as a major literary force.” —The New York Times

“Wise and genial. . . . The novel’s architecture enthralls, drawing us into the opaque naves and transepts of an addict’s shame and an immigrant’s tenacious hope.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“It was obvious from the start that Dinaw Mengestu was adding something extraordinary to American literature. . . . Forged from an alloy that defies the heat of the melting pot, Mengestu’s stories are an inimitable monument to the African immigrant experience. In book after book, this patron saint of longing has unraveled the twisted privileges and agonies of being here but not of here. . . . Once again, Mengestu has driven us along a path we never knew existed to a place we all recognize.” —The Washington Post

“Stunning. . . . Mengestu’s latest pushes far beyond ‘immigrant novel’ status or any similar, confining labels, meditating expansively on questions of displacement, family love, and the battle between denial and self-reckoning.” —The Los Angeles Review of Books

“A captivating novel about displacement, isolation, and oppression.” —TIME

“A dizzying portrait of the immigrant experience.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“A moving, memorable novel . . . [Mengestu] defies standard immigrant-narrativetropes in which successes compensate for feelings of longing, displacement, and loss. But this time, it’s bleaker as Mengestu emphasizes his characters’ fears of deportation, of being pulledover by police, and their utter exhaustion as work and anxiety rob them of sleep.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Beautiful . . . Mengestu shifts fluidly between fabulism and realism, and the narrative is full of wisdom related to Samuel’s disillusionment with the American dream. Mengestu’s tremendous talents are on full display.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Mengestu expertly portrays the lives of immigrants who are never totally accepted in their adopted country and their American-born children who must straddle both worlds.” —Library Journal