| Imbolo Mbue: her characters are complex, with contradictory motivations |
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue review – an impressive debut
This is not a story of noble immigrants versus the evil banking class: it is about people who have no room to manoeuvre
Fri 4 Aug 2017 11.01 BST
S
o charged has the word “migrant” become that I hesitate to call Imbolo Mbue’s impressive debut a migrant novel; yet all the ingredients are there. The protagonist Jende Jonga is, like Mbue, a Cameroonian migrant to America along with his wife Neni and their six-year old son Liomi. And Clark Edwards, Jende’s boss, an investment banker, is also a migrant, coming to Wall Street from the American hinterland; his ancestors were once newcomers with funny accents and funnier customs.