Books: Rebecca Haile's 'Rediscovery of Ethiopia'

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HOW DOES IT FEEL to straddle two cultures? What is the difference between people of the same blood, born in the same place but raised thousands of miles apart? Is home still home if it hasn't housed you in a quarter century?

In 1976, two years after Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam and his army, known as the Derg, overthrew Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, Rebecca Haile and her family were forced to leave the capital city of Addis Ababa. Rebecca Haile was 11 when her father was shot by the Derg and left paralyzed. The family moved to central Minnesota.

Twenty-five years later, Haile returned to the country of her birth "with all [her] Americanisms" in tow. She found a family that was as welcoming as they were three decades before, an enthrallingly rich history and frustrating social stratifications. She chronicles her trip in her new book, "Held at a Distance: My Rediscovery of Ethiopia."

This week, Haile comes to Washington for two readings — Thursday at 7 p.m. at Olsson's Penn Quarter (418 7th Street NW) and Saturday at 2 p.m. at Sankofa Cafe and Bookstore (2714 Georgia Ave. NW). Before she arrived, Express asked Haile to discuss her trip home and how she feels about Ethiopia now.

» EXPRESS: Do you consider this book an autobiography? It provides a lot of the history of your time in Ethiopia.
» HAILE: No, I don't think of it as autobiographical. I laid out the history surrounding our departure as a way of explaining why we left and what I was thinking when I went back and why it had taken me so long to go back. But I didn't intend it to be an exhaustive story of myself and certainly not of my family.

» EXPRESS: Who did you write this book for?
» HAILE: When I returned, I didn't intend to write a book. I started taking notes for myself to make sense of the various issues that struck me — Issues such as identity mediation (What you think about when you have one foot in one culture and one in another?) and the question of memory (What is it that we remember, what stays the same, what do we carry with us, what has nothing to do with modern reality?). So I started out writing for myself.

When I turned it into a book, I was thinking of several things. It's only been in the last 30 years that Ethiopians have left Ethiopia. It occurred to me that what I was thinking about and the issues that I was struggling through would be relevant to a large and growing community of people — people born here or people who came here when they were very young.

Secondly, I'm interested in the humanization of Ethiopia. It's a country that people in the West, if we know it at all, we tend to know it through the headlines of poverty, famine and civil war. Not to deny that those things aren't very important in defining the modern nation — they are absolutely relevant and central issues. But that isn't all there is. There's also a country with its own unique and rich culture and history. It's a country full of actual ordinary people: Farmers, teachers, engineers, grandmothers, taxi drivers and church-goers.

» EXPRESS: D.C. has one of the largest Ethiopian populations in the world. Was that part of the reason you wanted to come to D.C.?
» HAILE: Absolutely. It's a natural place to do a reading. I had my first reading in New York last week. New York is where I live, and it also has a fairly good-sized Ethiopian community. But D.C. is definitely the biggest one, and I am looking forward to it. I've actually lived outside of that community. I've lived in places like Minnesota, gone to college in small towns where there haven't been big Ethiopian communities. So I'm really interested to see how this is received and the sorts of questions I'll get.

» EXPRESS: At the beginning of the book, you say you're uncertain whether you can still call Ethiopia home. How do you feel now?
» HAILE: I feel that it is more available to me than I had realized. That the choice is more mine, if that makes sense. Through my family, which was incredibly welcoming both to me and of my husband, I came away feeling that there was room for me with all of my Americanisms.

» EXPRESS: How emotionally difficult was the trip home? Was it harder or easier than expected?
» HAILE: It was more emotional and greater than I expected. I'm not an incredibly emotional person, and because we left under such circumstances, I guess I intentionally or subconsciously kept my expectations low because I was fearful of what was going to happen.

It was just so emotional. Hanging out with my grandmother in her house again and just seeing this 90-some-year-old woman doing these rituals that I remembered from 25 years ago — they're exactly the same. Twenty-five years had passed like that and they were so happy to see us and [were] so loving and so thrilled. Then the opportunity to see a more modern Ethiopia through my uncle's work, which to me was so interesting. Then the chance to travel to the historic cities, which I had read about, but hadn't been to — and just seeing all that history.

» EXPRESS: Do you think the trip would have been different if it had been your father's trip instead of yours?
» HAILE: I would have to assume so. I don't think he feels the difference that I feel. His heart and mind are there always. He spent the same number of years abroad, but he spent his formative years there. His earlier choices were dedicated to his career choices, academic choices and religion. All his identity is there, and his professional work in the States has been about Ethiopia.

So I don't think he would feel any of the identity issues or cultural issues. He would never have this title "Held at a Distance," which for me, captures my relationship with Ethiopia. I tried to step back and I tried to look at it, and I have American eyes now. I don't know that he would have that same distance. I don't know that he would have written this book. I think he would have just felt at home.

» EXPRESS: Do you expect to return to Ethiopia again? And do you think other family members will return?
» HAILE: Yes. In fact, my younger sister has returned. She has gone. I think the government is repressive. It's not better than the one that was there then. So that's there. But I think people are going. I think people in my family — I don't know about my parents, but I think my generation will go.

» Olsson's, 418 7th St. NW; Thu., 7 p.m., free; 202-638-7610. (Gallery Place/ Archives-Navy)

Art courtesy Academy Chicago Publishers