Product Description

A literary debut hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "a great American novel."

Awards Include:
Finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction
Winner of the Guardian First Book Prize
New York Times Notable Book
Winner of the National Book Foundation's “5 Under 35” Award
Recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship
Winner of the Prix du Premier Roman
Named the Seattle Reads Selection of 2008

Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution for a new start in the United States. Now he finds himself running a failing grocery store in a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C., his only companions two fellow African immigrants who share his bitter nostalgia and longing for his home continent. Years ago and worlds away Sepha could never have imagined a life of such isolation. As his environment begins to change, hope comes in the form of a friendship with new neighbors Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter. But when a series of racial incidents disturbs the community, Sepha may lose everything all over again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24000 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Barely suppressed despair and black wit infuse this beautifully observed debut from Ethiopian émigré Mengestu. Set over eight months in a gentrifying Washington, D.C., neighborhood in the 1970s, it captures an uptick in Ethiopian grocery store owner Sepha Stephanos's long-deferred hopes, as Judith, a white academic, fixes up the four-story house next to his apartment building, treats him to dinner and lets him steal a kiss. Just as unexpected is Sepha's friendship with Judith's biracial 11-year-old daughter, Naomi (one of the book's most vivid characters), over a copy of The Brothers Karamazov. Mengestu adds chiaroscuro with the story of Stephanos's 17-year exile from his family and country following his father's murder by revolutionary soldiers. After long days in the dusty, barely profitable shop, Sepha's two friends, Joseph from Congo and Kenneth from Kenya, joke with Sepha about African dictators and gently mock his romantic aspirations, while the neighborhood's loaded racial politics hang over Sepha and Judith's burgeoning relationship like a sword of Damocles. The novel's dirge-like tone may put off readers looking for the next Kite Runner, but Mengestu's assured prose and haunting set pieces (especially a series of letters from Stephanos's uncle to Jimmy Carter, pleading that he respect "the deep friendship between our two countries") are heart-rending and indelible. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
One of the glories of the literature of exile is the sharp outlines a writer can bring to the contours of his adoptive society. For readers who were born in the writer's host country, such literature can uncover things that might otherwise be obscured by familiarity. Dinaw Mengestu's praiseworthy first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, draws upon this principle. Take, for example, this wide-eyed reflection by Sepha Stephanos, the Ethiopian émigré who narrates the story, on riding the Washington Metro: "The red-line train bound for the suburbs of Maryland is delayed. The trains of this city continue to marvel me, regardless of how long I live here. It's not just their size, but their order, the sense you get when riding them that a higher, regulatory power is in firm control, even if you yourself are not." Most native Metro users probably wouldn't greet a delay with such transcendental musings.

But Stephanos lacks an outlet -- aside from his friends -- to channel his thoughts. The novel underscores this element by contrasting his plight with that of the 19th-century writer Alexis de Tocqueville, who is a favorite author of a character in the novel. Unlike the blue-blooded Frenchman who returned to his homeland and was celebrated for his insights into American life, the struggling Stephanos seems unlikely to return to his native country or win admiration for his perspicacity.

As a teenager, Stephanos fled Ethiopia to escape fallout from the military coup that ousted Haile Selassie in 1974 and thrust the Dergue -- a junta that ruled the country until 1987 -- into power. Stephanos's father -- a prosperous lawyer in Ethiopia's capital -- attracted the ire of a government determined to snuff out all so-called counter- revolutionaries. After witnessing his father's brutal treatment at the hands of the Dergue's henchmen, Stephanos acceded to his mother's wishes and fled Ethiopia. Eventually, he made his way to Washington.

Mengestu's tightly written novel largely unfolds in alternating chapters of past and present. The story is structured around a period of unrest in Logan Circle when gentrification led to evictions. For Stephanos, the influx of moneyed white people into the predominantly black neighborhood where he resides and runs a grocery store is a welcome event. He hopes that his business might improve along with the neighborhood and that his loneliness might be alleviated by a white academic and her biracial child, whom he befriends.

Unfortunately, vandalism aimed at Logan Circle's new residents prompts the Tocqueville-loving scholar, with whom Stephanos is enamored, to leave the neighborhood. And so, while Stephanos mulls over the events that vaporized his hopes for a more fulfilling life, he finds himself in a self-reflective purgatory, searching for a new raison d'être. Indeed, 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.

Apart from its lean sentences, which very rarely overreach, Mengestu's novel benefits from his plausible depiction of characters caught on the seams between two worlds -- rich/poor, black/white, citizen/foreigner. This lends an urgency to their ruminations that believably cleanses their conversation of small talk. In other words, the big ideas of Stephanos and his two African friends about racial politics in America, the necessary accouterments for success, and why colonels make for better dictators than generals don't come off as stilted but as natural byproducts of their exiled condition.

With its well-observed characters and brisk narrative pacing, greatly benefited by the characters' tension-laced wit, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is an assured literary debut by a writer worth watching.

-- Christopher Byrd is a writer who lives in New York.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
In his run-down store in a gentrifying neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Ethiopian immigrant Stepha Stephanos regularly meets with fellow African immigrants Ken the Kenyan and Joe from the Congo. Their favorite game is matching African nations to coups and dictators, as they consider how their new immigrant expectations measure up to the reality of life in America after 17 years. From his store and nearby apartment, Stephanos makes keen observations of American race and class tensions, seeing similarities--physical and social--to his hometown of Addis Ababa, where his father was killed in the throes of revolution. When Judith, a white woman, and Naomi, her mixed-race daughter, move into the neighborhood, Stephanos finds tentative prospects for friendship beyond his African compatriots. Mengestu, himself an Ethiopian immigrant, engages the reader in a deftly drawn portrait of dreams in the face of harsh realities from the perspective of immigrants. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Stunning debut
I just listened to the audio version of this novel from my library during a couple weeks of commuting and I must say I found it entrancing. This is some of the most lyrical writing I've come across in years. The narrator Dion Graham is outstanding as well. Though it would admittedly be a challenge (lack of outward action) I could also imagine this book being remade into a very good and powerful independent film if it was carefully cast and tightly directed. Interestingly the story somewhat reminded me of the great movie "Do the Right Thing", though in a much quieter, less explosive and more personal context. Both obviously deal beautiful in their own ways with the intense friction of change and different cultures coming together in small urban spaces undergoing rapid change. It also shows how alone we can be even in our most crowded places.

One question about the timeline. I've read that the novel is set in the 1970's but at the start of the story the main character Sepha has been in America for 17 years and the events which caused him to flee surrounding his father's execution are described as being in 1977. That would put the events of the novel in the 1994-1995 period. Also, as a native Washingtonian I can say that the Logan Circle and surrounding Shaw and Columbia Heights neighborhoods didn't even START to gentrify until the crack epidemic calmed down around the mid to late 1990's. The novel is frustratingly vague about its time period and at least in the audio version the story bounces around without much of a hint at first about which time period Sepha's describing at different points in time. Other than that relatively minor quirk, though, it's a wonderful first effort and I'll be very interested to see where Mr. Mengestu's career goes from here. He's a real talent!

caveat emptor
Beware of ordering the bargain book copy of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears! The copy I received was missing pages 23-54.

Worthy Debut Novel About the Immigrant Experience
Mengestu's debut novel brings to life the American immigrant experience in a touching way. The novel is about an Ethiopian immigrant, Sepha, and his experiences in the Washington DC area over a seven month period in the 1970s. Mengestu captures the hopes and dreams, as well as the struggles and disappointment, of those coming to this country for a better life than in their native land.

Sepha owns a small neighborhood grocey story around Logan Circle, a community underground gentrification. We see his hopes for a more prosperous and successful business grow as work crews start renovating local buildings. Most notably, Sepha decides to start selling sandwiches and buys fresh deli meats and promotes this to what he hopes will be his new clientele.

The two dimensions of this book I found so rewarding are the interplay and relationships of the various characters with Sepha as well as the ups and downs of Sepha's experience representing the broader ebb and flow of immigrant experience.

Judith, a single white academic restores a four story brick neighborhood in the building and moves in with her wiser-than-her years 11 year old Naomi. The depth of Naomi's character was wonderful -- a somewhat sassy, precocious but sweet girl. We see Naomi take to Sepha and a deep bond created between the two of them -- Sepha becomes a father/older brother figure to her. Especially poignant was the joy and fun they had reading of the Brothers Karamazov together in the store.

At the same time Sepha begins to fall for Judith and we see the impact that race and language has on their relationship. Once again, the hope of a bright future gives way to the dim reality of the struggle most first generation immigrants face.

Mengestu ultimately crafts a very satisfying and enjoyable read. It brings smiles and laughter to the reader as well sadness and disappointment -- working both at the character level but at the broader level of immigrant experience. Mengestu is a young author that you'll want to keep your eye out for in the future.