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The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

By Dinaw Mengestu

(3)

| Hardcover | 9781594489402

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Book Description

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 to the United States. Now he finds himself running a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood iContinue

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 to the United States. Now he finds himself running a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C. His only companions are two fellow African immigrants who share his feelings of frustration with and bitter nostalgia for their home continent. He realizes that his life has turned out completely different and far more isolated from the one he had imagined for himself years ago. Soon Sepha's neighborhood begins to change. Hope comes in the form of new neighbors-Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter-who become his friends and remind him of what having a family is like for the first time in years. But when the neighborhood's newfound calm is disturbed by a series of racial incidents, Sepha may lose everything all over again. Told in a haunting and powerful first-person narration that casts the streets of Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa through Sepha's eyes, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is a deeply affecting and unforgettable debut novel about what it means to lose a family and a country-and what it takes to create a new home.

Critics

  • African, American

    The Alexandrian exile André Aciman used to linger in a tatty Upper West Side park just for the bittersweet pleasure of shadowing his surroundings with images from cities he’d known and lost, remaking the architecture of the present, as he put it, “so ... (read full critics)

    nytimes published on Sat, 18 Sep 2010

  • Bookreporter.com - THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS by Dinaw Mengestu

    Sepha Stephanos is stuck in time. He is in Ethiopia, huddled in the corner with his brother, watching his father being beaten by revolutionaries during the Red Terror. He flees to America, but his life in the "land of opportunity" is merely a dream - ... (read full critics)

    bookreporter published on Thu, 2 Sep 2010

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9781594489402 Hardcover -- $11.99 ebooks.com
$22.95 -- The Book Depository
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