Ten-year-old Asalif and his mother have been displaced from their farmland on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by the construction of a condominium. To fight back against those casting him out and those threatening his mother’s safety, Asalif taps into a fantasy of becoming his hero: the lion (anbessa in Amharic). His newfound power and fantasy take him to places he never imagined inside and out of the condo, until finally Asalif must find the strength that resides in him as a boy, and shed the lion persona in order to deal with the tides of change and violence that are usurping a community, a country, and his own identity.