71 pages • 2 hours read
Mawi AsgedomOf Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Introduction & Author’s NoteChapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction & Author’s Note Summary
The Introduction, dated June 2016, is written specifically for the reissued 15th anniversary edition of Of Beetles and Angels. Audiences have been enthusiastic about the book in the intervening years since its original 2001 publication date, praising Mawi’s story of overcoming hardship against all odds.
Mawi shares the behind-the-scenes story of how the book was almost never published: when his apartment was burglarized and his laptop stolen, the only copy of the manuscript for Of Beetles and Angels was lost. Despite it being an emotionally exhausting task to write the story of his life, Mawi decides to rewrite the book because, as he says, the story of refugees in America is an important one: “I wrote and rewrote this book not just for myself, but for the millions of refugees who could not share their stories. At the very least, there would be one book that told our story” (xiii).
In the Author’s Note, Mawi gives some explanation as to why he has chosen to (mostly) leave politics out of Of Beetles and Angels, even though the story of African refugees is an inherently political one. In the United States, the author goes by his nickname (Mawi), but his full name (Selamawi) is translated as follows in his native language: “Peaceful power from above who makes others kneel before him” (xiii). He says that, in the spirit of peace, he has elected to leave the political details out of this book.
Introduction & Author’s Note Analysis
The themes of resilience and forgiveness are introduced in the opening chapters of the book. Even in Mawi’s writing of the manuscript, resilience and forgiveness were required. As Mawi says: “After all, it’s only fitting that a book about overcoming challenges would require resilience in its writing” (xiii).
In the Author’s Note, Mawi announces that, for the most part, he will not discuss politics in this book. In doing so, he alludes to the complex political situation in Ethiopia/Eritrea that, while an integral part of his family’s story, is outside the scope of this book. The Ethiopian Civil War, which lasted from 1974 to 1991, began after the fall of the monarchy, and in its wake had multiple, feuding rebel groups vying for control over the region. For the purposes of this book, it is primarily useful to know that this created hundreds of thousands of displaced habesha refugees. Choosing to focus on the lived experiences of the habesha in America, and using his own family as an example, Mawi focuses on the human element of the refugeestory, rather than the ins and outs of the complicated political situation.
It is also important to note that Of Beetles and Angels is written with an American audience in mind, with the primary intention of making refugees’ stories known to a population that might otherwise not give such stories the proper attention. As stated in the Introduction, “I wrote this book for many reasons…But most of all, to proclaim, We exist. African refugees exist. And we don’t just exist, we matter. Our stories are important and deserve to be heard” (xiii). To help better explain the plight of refugees for non-Africans, Mawi must gauge his writing so that it can be understood by a mostly middle-class, presumably majority-white audience. Writing for this audience is an authorial choice that affects the tone and scope of thebook.
