We're excited to share the news that our friends at Book-It Repertory Theatre, a Seattle company that turns great literature into great theater, is launching a production of Behold the Dreamers! The book's author is Imbolo Mbue, who grew up in Limbe. In fact, we have a circuitous connection to early news of the book's publication. During a trip to Cameroon, when our delegation visited a senior women's community group in Limbe, one of the women told us she had a daughter in New York who was about to publish a book. This was Imbolo's mother!
The play runs June 6th - 30th. We hope you'll come! Here's a description:
"Jende and Neni Jonga have recently emigrated from Cameroon to America to try to make a new life for themselves and their young son. When the Great Recession starts to upend the economy, the Jongas begin to grasp the fragility of the American dream. Imbolo Mbue masterfully weaves a story of class divide, immigration, and marriage in her remarkable debut novel. Behold the Dreamers is a New York Times bestseller, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and a pick for Oprah’s Book Club."