Released in 2016, Behold the Dreamers is author Imbolo Mbue's debut novel. It tells the story of a young man named Jende Jonga, an immigrant from Cameroon. After looking for a while for a job, Jende gets a prestigious job for a Lehman Brothers senior executive named Clark Edwards. The year is 2007 and Jende and his wife couldn't be happier - they love their employer, and their employer loves them. However, just one year later, the world would be plunged into a Great Recession and Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. This rocks the lives of everyone in the book -- and the book covers how this transforms the lives of Jenga, his wife, as well as his employer and his wife.
At release, Behold the Dreamers received incredibly positive reviews. Michael Schaub of NPR absolutely adored the book, writing "Behold the Dreamers is a remarkable debut. Mbue is a wonderful writer with an uncanny ear for dialogue — there are no false notes here, no narrative shortcuts, and certainly no manufactured happy endings. It's a novel that depicts a country both blessed and doomed, on top of the world, but always at risk of losing its balance." Other reviewers thought similarly. Cristina Henríquez of The New York Times, for example, called it "a capacious, big-hearted novel." Not only that, the book was nominated for a number of prominent awards and was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her prestigious book club.
