Behold the Dreamers

Mbue's debut novel follows Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant in Harlem, who in 2007 lands a job as chauffeur to Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers; Jende's wife Neni finds work in the Edwards household as well. The Jongas' foothold in America is real but fragile — an asylum case built on shaky ground, an employer whose marriage and firm are both cracking — and when Lehman collapses in 2008, both families face the wreckage of their different American dreams. The novel won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was chosen for Oprah's Book Club.

Author: Imbolo Mbue · Original publisher: Random House (New York), 2016