Mihret Sibhat's debut novel, The History of a Difficult Child, takes place in a small, unnamed town in southwestern Ethiopia, in which everybody lives in a state of constant unease or fear. It's ten years after Ethiopia's socialist revolution, and any act, benign or not—leaving a flag tangled up, or listening to the radio for news about Ethiopia's famine and war against guerilla groups—might be deemed counterrevolutionary and reportable by one's peers to local government, leading to arrest or worse. The Asmelashes—a former landowning family who lost their compound and servants in the revolution but are far from destitute—are disliked and ostracized in the town. This is especially true for Degitu, the matriarch, who is simultaneously mythologized for being good at everything she tries, resented but admired for her toughness, and pitied for her mysterious, painful ...