Dissidents, Revolutionaries, and Protestors: On Imbolo Mbue’s ‘How Beautiful We Were’
It wasn’t easy to pin down an interview with , the 39-year-old novelist whose first book, 2016’s —a dissection of capitalism, class, and the American dream set during the Great Recession—went on to become a bestseller, an Oprah Book Club pick, and the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. But the scheduling challenges weren’t any person’s fault. On March 12, in an attempt to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, Mayor declared a state of emergency for New York City, where Mbue lives with her husband and children. So, instead of meeting in person, she answered questions via Skype from her Midtown apartment, casually dressed in a denim shirt, her hair up in a bun, during a brief break from figuring out what exactly one does
