384 pages | Paperback

A fearless young woman from a small African village starts a revolution against an American oil company in this sweeping, inspiring novel from theNew York Timesbestselling author ofBehold the Dreamers.

A novel with the richness and power of a great contemporary fable, and a heroine for our time.Sigrid Nunez, author ofThe Friend, winner of the National Book Award

We should have known the end was near.

So begins Imbolo Mbues powerful second novel,How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are madeand ignored. The countrys government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. Their struggle will last for decades and come at a steep price.

Told from the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary,How Beautiful We Wereis a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one communitys determination to hold on to its ancestral land and a young womans willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her peoples freedom.