"Part travelogue, part history, part memoir, Rebecca Haile's Held at a Distance shines a bright and unique light on Ethiopia....as rich and nuanced a portrait of her native land as I have seen."

-- Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University

When I finally had the chance to return to Ethiopia after living in the United States for twenty-five years, I went with mixed emotions. I was excited, naturally, to visit my birthplace, but I was also nervous about returning to the country my family had fled when I was eleven. Was I going "home", or would I, as the American I have since become, be an uncomfortable outsider?

Thanks in large part to the welcome of my extended family, I returned from the trip with a renewed sense of connection to Ethiopia. In the course of my stay, I rediscovered and explored a complex, beautiful and troubled country. And as I wrote in Held at a Distance, which came out of that trip, I learned that "society is not static, and that the work of belonging does not rest on my shoulders alone."

I invite you to share in my experience of Ethiopia through this website and the book.

You can read excerpts and reviews, read or listen to author interviews, and take a look at some photographs, including many from the trip that I couldn't include in the book.

You can also find links to good resources and sites on Ethiopia, and check out some of my other work.

And you can leave a comment - I'd love to hear from you.