I Hope You Find What You're Looking For - A Novel

The year is 1991. Eritrea is on the verge of liberation from Ethiopian rule and in Washington, D.C.'s tight-knit Eritrean community, change is in the air. Thirteen-year-old Lydia and her family are grappling with what peace might mean for their future, just as they welcome a new relative into their home: Berekhet, a cousin newly arrived from Ethiopia to attend medical school. Berekhet encourages Lydia to confront a barrage of new ideas for the first time, about nationhood, family and what it means to be truly free. Meanwhile, her mother, Elsa, a former rebel fighter, and the family matriarch, Mama Zewdi, contend with regrets and secrets long-buried-secrets that the emboldened Lydia is determined to uncover, including the truth about her martyred father. Written with warmth and sharp humour, Bsrat Mezghebe's mesmerising debut novel is a loving ode to an immigrant community on the cusp of a new age.

About the author

Bsrat Mezghebe received an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Paris Review, and the anthology Well–Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

Product details

• Authors: Bsrat Mezghebe
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 03.03.2026
• EAN: 9781324092490
• ISBN: 978-1-324-09249-0
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; FICTION / Women, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Fiction: special features, Historical fiction, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Contemporary lifestyle fiction, Narrative theme: displacement, exile, migration, FICTION / African American & Black / Women, Relating to African American / Black American people, FICTION / Historical / 20th Century / General, FICTION / Immigration, Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general