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Mengestu’s talent as a storyteller is shown in this, his first novel. It’s a powerful, well-written story with vivid, lovable characters that have flaws and strengths that make them seem very real. .
A summary from the book jacket begins:
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian revolution after witnessing soldiers beat his father to the point of certain death, selling off his parents’ jewelry to pay for passage out of the country. Now he finds himself running a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where his daytime customers are schoolchildren and his nighttime customers are prostitutes and alcoholics. His only companions are two fellow African immigrants, a Congolese waiter and a Kenyan engineer, who share his feelings of frustration with and bitter nostalgia for their home continent.
And so the story begins in Sepha’s store, with Ken the Kenyan and Joe from the Congo, as they play a form of trivial pursuit regarding African dictators. Sepha’s relationship with a new neighbor, Judith, develops some interesting tangles and twists, and especially poignant is his friendship with Judith’s biracial 11-year-old daughter Naomi, which is made stronger over a copy of The Brothers Karamazov.
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The title of the novel comes from the last lines of Dante’s Inferno, where the poet, emerging from hell, is granted a glimpse of heaven before he makes his way into purgatory.
The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears......Dinaw Mengestu
A summary from the book jacket begins:
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian revolution after witnessing soldiers beat his father to the point of certain death, selling off his parents’ jewelry to pay for passage out of the country. Now he finds himself running a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where his daytime customers are schoolchildren and his nighttime customers are prostitutes and alcoholics. His only companions are two fellow African immigrants, a Congolese waiter and a Kenyan engineer, who share his feelings of frustration with and bitter nostalgia for their home continent.
And so the story begins in Sepha’s store, with Ken the Kenyan and Joe from the Congo, as they play a form of trivial pursuit regarding African dictators. Sepha’s relationship with a new neighbor, Judith, develops some interesting tangles and twists, and especially poignant is his friendship with Judith’s biracial 11-year-old daughter Naomi, which is made stronger over a copy of The Brothers Karamazov.
</div></div>
The title of the novel comes from the last lines of Dante’s Inferno, where the poet, emerging from hell, is granted a glimpse of heaven before he makes his way into purgatory.
The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears......Dinaw Mengestu