Mimi Washington
Mimi Washington’s passion for writing began in a small rural town outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her love of words flourished in high school, earning her a scholarship to attend Point Park College before transferring to Temple University, where she earned a degree in Journalism. Following graduation, Mimi joined the Peace Corps and served in Liberia, West Africa, first as a volunteer and later as a staff member.
Her years in Africa profoundly shaped her world view and inspired a lifelong passion for African history, culture, and the enduring resilience of its people. After her Peace Corps service, she settled in Northern California, where she built a successful career while raising her daughter, Kiah.
An avid traveler, Mimi has journeyed throughout Africa, Europe, China, and Israel. These experiences enrich her storytelling with authenticity, cultural depth, and historical perspective, allowing readers to experience places, people, and events through vivid and carefully researched narratives.
Mimi credits her grandmother with nurturing her lifelong love of language and literature. Each week, her grandmother read aloud from The Pittsburgh Courier, one of America's most influential historic Black newspapers, instilling in her a deep appreciation for the power of words and storytelling. It was also her grandmother and mother who gave her the nickname "Mimi" and encouraged her to pursue higher education, travel the world, and embrace every opportunity to gain experience.
She is a member of the National Writer’s Association and the Academy of American Poets.
BOOK REVIEW
( By Kirkus Indie )
In Washington’s debut novel, a young woman flees racial violence and becomes embroiled in a coup d’état. As the novel opens in 1980, readers meet 23-year-old American Nicole Jefferson, who was inspired to study the culture of Africa by her mother’s idyllic stories about it. As a child, Nicole’s love for the continent “grew deep and wide like the roots of the acacia trees.” She signs up for the Peace Corps, expecting to encounter a welcoming, communal culture in Liberia, but things don’t go as planned.
Before her plane lands, she and her fellow recruits are caught up in a hijacking attempt, orchestrated by European mercenaries. Later, the volunteers are gathered into the American embassy for safety; there, a U.S. senator’s daughter slips Nicole an audiocassette, making Nicole part of a conspiracy with connections to the highest levels of the Liberian government. Before long, she encounters Gen. Souleymane Guindo, the country’s new defense minister, who “carried himself like he’d grown up in a castle, and not on a cow farm.” The two commence an affair that embroils Nicole still further in a plot to overthrow the rightfully elected but dictatorial Liberian president.
Washington keeps things moving swiftly in a plot featuring a car chase, secret messages, palace escapes, and dark family secrets. The prose is fleet and readable despite an occasional tendency to overstate (“little boys whose eyes were bloodshot and yellow. Like jawbreakers. Their eyes looked like jawbreakers”), with intriguing new developments constantly catching the reader’s eye. A former Peace Corps volunteer herself, Washington shows off her knowledge of the politics and the mise-en-scène of West Africa, and readers will have fun matching up the real-life historical picture with the author’s fictional one.
A turbulent, exciting story of West African revolution.
Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Rd., Austin, TX 78744 indie@kirkusreviews.com
