All Our Names

"In All Our Names, Dinaw Mengestu explores the nature of loneliness and love, violence and identity. The story is told by two narrators: Isaac is a young man who flees revolution in Uganda to seek refuge in America; and Helen is a white woman, a social worker assigned to his case, who has never left the Midwest. It’s the 1970s and the taboo against mixed-race couples is still powerful, but the two fall into a passionate and secretive affair. Other kinds of secrets emerge as Isaac’s story unfolds and Helen begins to understand that he has left his real identity, and much more, back in Uganda. There is nothing simple about their affair; it is born out of loneliness and complicated by prejudice and war. But it is a love that, in the end, saves these characters and redeems them."