The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu, 2007.
Public debate surrounding immigration is even more heated now than it was in 2007 when this book was published. Mengestu personalizes the immigration “issue”. The narrator is from Ethiopia, and his best friends are from Kenya and Congo. They share a history of violent dislocation.
Stephanos, the narrator, owns a struggling store in a struggling Washington DC neighborhood. A woman moves in and renovates a large, once elegant house, and change imposes itself on the community. Stephanos and the woman are mutually attracted, but somehow keep “missing” each other. Loneliness is the theme of this book.
This is a well written book. I feel like I got to know some people I’m might otherwise not have encountered.
The book seems to also have another title, Children of the Revolution. I found this out from Amazon.com, when I looked to see what else Mengestu wrote. A second book, How to Read the Air, was published in 2010. I hope he keeps writing.
AMG Reading Journal 