num_pages: 276
description: Ash from the Eyjafjallajkull volcano fills the skies. Flights are grounded throughout Europe. Dessie a cosmopolitan flight attendant from Canada finds herself stranded in Addis Ababa  her birth place.Grieving her mother's recent death Dessie heads to see her grandfather the Shaleqa  compelled as much by duty as her own will. But Dessie's conflicted past stands in her way. Just as the volcano's eruption disordered Dessie's work life so too does her mother's death cause seismic disruptions in the fine balance of self-deceptions and false histories that uphold her family.As Dessie reacquaints herself with her grandfather's house familiar yet strangely alien to her diasporic sensibilities she pieces together the family secrets: the trauma of dictatorship and civil war the shame of unwed motherhood the abuse met with silence that gives shape to the mystery of her mother's life.Reminiscent of the deeply immersive writing of Taiye Selasi and Arundhati Roy Rebecca Fisseha's Daughters of Silence is psychologically astute and buoyed both by metaphor and by the vibrant colours of Ethiopia. It's an impressive debut.
language: English
title: Daughters of Silence
publisher: Goose Lane Editions