Awards Include:
Finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction
Winne... read full description
Finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction
Winne... read full description
reviews
Mar 16, 2010
Paul
rated it: 
Big disappointment. This is all about an Ethiopian refugee who's now been in Washington DC for 17 years and runs a grocery store in a poor neighbourhood. Now the author must know whereof he speaks, but I could hardly believe the picture he painted. In 17 years, we are to understand that Sepha, our immigrant, has made precisely two friends. And these two friends have only made two friends - each other. And none of these three immigrant friends have got married or had any long term relationships.
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Jul 23, 2008
Emma
rated it: 
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears was the July selection for my book club, but I almost didn't read it because I knew I wouldn't be able to make the actual meeting. But, I decided to read it anyway and I'm glad I did.
My expectations going in may have shaped my feelings about the book. I knew that it was written by an Ethiopian immigrant and that it was about the Ethiopian immigrant experience in Washington, D.C. Before picking it up, I assumed it was a memoir. I thought it More...
My expectations going in may have shaped my feelings about the book. I knew that it was written by an Ethiopian immigrant and that it was about the Ethiopian immigrant experience in Washington, D.C. Before picking it up, I assumed it was a memoir. I thought it More...
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(4 people liked it)
Mar 24, 2008
Rajesh
rated it:
Mediocrity’s Cookbook: A review of Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
By Rajesh Barnabas
(For The Ethiopian American, January 2007)
From majestic auspices a middle aged Ethiopian-American shopkeeper negotiates his own desires against the envisioned hopes of his family ancestry or more accurately – his interpretation of their hopes. Sepha Stephanos lives in DC. He moved out of his uncle’s apartment, estranged from the only relative he has in A More...
By Rajesh Barnabas
(For The Ethiopian American, January 2007)
From majestic auspices a middle aged Ethiopian-American shopkeeper negotiates his own desires against the envisioned hopes of his family ancestry or more accurately – his interpretation of their hopes. Sepha Stephanos lives in DC. He moved out of his uncle’s apartment, estranged from the only relative he has in A More...
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(2 people liked it)
Mar 22, 2008
Jack
rated it:
Sadly, this book never really took off for me. I liked the subject (it's about an Ethiopian immigrant living in a gentrifying neighborhood in DC), but I didn't really get into the characters so emotionally the story fell flat.
Half of the story is told in flashbacks telling about the narrator's burgeoning romance with a wealthy white woman who moves into his poor neighborhood, and the other half deals with the fall-out from that relationship. I didn't feel like the balance between More...
Half of the story is told in flashbacks telling about the narrator's burgeoning romance with a wealthy white woman who moves into his poor neighborhood, and the other half deals with the fall-out from that relationship. I didn't feel like the balance between More...
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(4 people liked it)
Dec 16, 2009
Jeffrey
rated it: 
Full disclosure: I know the author of this book. It is very difficult to judge a book by an author you know. Unless that author is me, in which case it is easy: prognosis - brilliant!
This is the story of an immigrant from Ethiopia and his relationship with his friends, neighbors, and in particular, a small girl in the neighborhood. Not a lot happens, but we learn a lot about the characters and the difficulties facing immigrants in America. The book is getting raves from reviewers, a More...
This is the story of an immigrant from Ethiopia and his relationship with his friends, neighbors, and in particular, a small girl in the neighborhood. Not a lot happens, but we learn a lot about the characters and the difficulties facing immigrants in America. The book is getting raves from reviewers, a More...
Sep 12, 2011
Ryan
rated it:
Set in Washington, D.C., Mengestue's The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears describes Sepha Stephanos' life as an immigrant.
Stephanos fled to America from the Ethiopian Revolution, during which he witnessed his father beaten by soldiers. Today, he runs a convenience store in a rough neighborhood. Though Stephanos tries to get business from the business of commuters in the morning, the food stamp mothers in the afternoon, and the hookers in the night, his store is going out of busines More...
Stephanos fled to America from the Ethiopian Revolution, during which he witnessed his father beaten by soldiers. Today, he runs a convenience store in a rough neighborhood. Though Stephanos tries to get business from the business of commuters in the morning, the food stamp mothers in the afternoon, and the hookers in the night, his store is going out of busines More...
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(1 person liked it)
Sep 11, 2008
Marguerite
rated it:
A thoughtful, sometimes comic, book that explains the American immigrant experience better than anything else I've read. Shopkeeper Sepha appears to embody the American dream, but with his heart still in Ethiopia, his hopes are exiled. He bides his time selling beer and diapers and playing a drinking/trivia game about African coups with two fellow immigrants. Hope arrives in the form of new neighbors, the advance guard of a trend to gentrify the decaying D.C. neighborhood where he has a small st
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(1 person liked it)
Apr 20, 2008
Peter
rated it: 
This is a magnificently simple book. Deceptively simple, like the Old Man and the Sea, in that you breeze through it and think "nice story" but when you pause for one moment and think about it, you realize that it is so much more than a nice story.
A blend of the political uncertainties and accompanying atrocities of the African continent with the ever present class struggles (overlaid by racial tension) of America. The parallels and similarities are clear but woven through More...
A blend of the political uncertainties and accompanying atrocities of the African continent with the ever present class struggles (overlaid by racial tension) of America. The parallels and similarities are clear but woven through More...
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(7 people liked it)
Feb 13, 2008
Kay
rated it:
Reviews I ran across about this book intrigued me, so I decided to check it out. I've got lots of Ethiopian students at the college where I teach, plus the novel is set in nearby DC, so I was intrigued.
However, I have to say that overall the book was a disappointment. My main problem was with the choice of first person narrative. I don't think it worked well, particularly given the obvious "MFA" quality of the writing. I kept thinking, "Gee, with this sort of insig More...
However, I have to say that overall the book was a disappointment. My main problem was with the choice of first person narrative. I don't think it worked well, particularly given the obvious "MFA" quality of the writing. I kept thinking, "Gee, with this sort of insig More...
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(1 person liked it)
Nov 23, 2008
Sheryl
rated it:
One of the most beautifully written books I've read in a while. I could not put it down.
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 31, 2012
Suzanne
rated it:
Truly a beautiful book! It's hard for me to imagine that this young, driven author was able to describe so well the aimlessness, the lack of drive and energy of Sepha. The novel is about Ethiopian immigrants, but it is really about anyone who is detatched and lost.
The setting is D. C., but it is really about any neighborhood which is in decline. The residents hate that the Circle is so poor and ugly and hate that its gentrification will dislocate them.
Sepha easily falls in love wi More...
The setting is D. C., but it is really about any neighborhood which is in decline. The residents hate that the Circle is so poor and ugly and hate that its gentrification will dislocate them.
Sepha easily falls in love wi More...
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 03, 2012
Richard
rated it:
Rating: 4.25* of five
How wonderful it is to find a first novel that feels so accomplished and tells such an engrossing story. I can't imagine that real, enjoyable talent is becoming rarer in a world that contains such eloquent proofs of its health.
Mengestu tells the story of three friends, African immigrants all, who meet in Washington DC, for so long the home territory of nativist sentiment in our republic of exclusion. I don't think a recap of the plot will help anyone deci More...
How wonderful it is to find a first novel that feels so accomplished and tells such an engrossing story. I can't imagine that real, enjoyable talent is becoming rarer in a world that contains such eloquent proofs of its health.
Mengestu tells the story of three friends, African immigrants all, who meet in Washington DC, for so long the home territory of nativist sentiment in our republic of exclusion. I don't think a recap of the plot will help anyone deci More...
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(2 people liked it)
Sep 19, 2011
Jen
rated it:
This is a certain type of book for a specific kind of reader -- if you are looking for a thick, meaty plot that traverses geography, that portrays passionate love (and its downfall), and that has grand sweeping adventure, you will be disappointed. This is a book for people who enjoy introspection in the minute details of life -- who enjoy reading between the plot and deciphering the actions, thoughts, and feelings of a protagonist through furniture, clothing, movement, small conservation and so
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Jun 04, 2011
Meredith
rated it:
I read this on a 12-hour plane ride to Ethiopia, because somehow, reading the Hunger Games trilogy felt inappropriate. I had a hard time finding modern Ethiopian literature, but this book was well-reviewed and the author highly lauded.
I found it a pleasant read, never unbearable, but ultimately hollow and uninspiring. Something was missing. I think my main problem was the plodding plot and prose -- I admittedly can't get into character-driven novels, especially when they are depress More...
I found it a pleasant read, never unbearable, but ultimately hollow and uninspiring. Something was missing. I think my main problem was the plodding plot and prose -- I admittedly can't get into character-driven novels, especially when they are depress More...
Jun 01, 2011
Rosemary
rated it:
It's complicated. I didn't enjoy this book. I get why so many respectable literary folks have sung it's praises. For a brief moment I wondered if me thirteen years ago would have found it heady. Would I have overlooked the annoying instances of paragraphs filled with the same sentence, only slightly altered? The last paragraph. Eek. Maybe. Maybe I'd get all douchey and argue it was part of the circular "technique" that pervades the narrative and not some lazy, I like they way they all
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May 29, 2011
Jennifer
rated it:
"Through a round aperture I saw appear/Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears/Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars."
In the eyes of Joseph, one of three friends, all Africans in exile, this passage from Dante's Inferno is perfect. "[N]o one can understand that line like an African because that is what we lived through. Hell every day with only glimpses of heaven in between." Like Dante, the characters in this book are caught between worlds, mour More...
In the eyes of Joseph, one of three friends, all Africans in exile, this passage from Dante's Inferno is perfect. "[N]o one can understand that line like an African because that is what we lived through. Hell every day with only glimpses of heaven in between." Like Dante, the characters in this book are caught between worlds, mour More...
Dec 31, 2010
Megan
rated it:
thought it was interesting...didn't find myself really relating to any of the characters or feeling much like it was a window looking in either...
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 companio More...
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 companio More...
Dec 28, 2010
Kirstie
rated it:
I really think this is an important novel for people in America who may not understand race relations, African coup and genocides, and an immigrant's perspective. The novel really deals with a sense of humanity in terms of an African immigrant who escapes brutality to start over in America and his two friends who continually recall the history of each revolution in each African country. It seems like every single country is wracked with a sense of political revolutions and violence.
I More...
I More...
Oct 24, 2010
While I liked this book, i wasn't blown away like the man who wrote its review for the NYTimes. For one thing, it's very bleak, which would be okay if more were happening in the narrative. But it's paced very slowly, which can be distracting. Stephanos is so circumspent that it's painful to exist in his world. I wanted him to grow a sack and get to it; ask the woman out already or close his damn store or go back home. After living through a civil war, watching his father get murdered, and b
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Aug 31, 2010
Matt
rated it:
From my review on DCist, 2007:
In Dante Alighieri's epic poem The Divine Comedy, the poet emerges from Hell with his guide, Virgil, and experiences something akin to a sailor seeing land for the first time in months.
"We climbed up, he first and I second, so far that through a round opening I saw some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears; and thence we issued forth to see again the stars."
It's one of the most powerful moments in the poem -- an More...
In Dante Alighieri's epic poem The Divine Comedy, the poet emerges from Hell with his guide, Virgil, and experiences something akin to a sailor seeing land for the first time in months.
"We climbed up, he first and I second, so far that through a round opening I saw some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears; and thence we issued forth to see again the stars."
It's one of the most powerful moments in the poem -- an More...
Aug 16, 2010
Lauren
rated it:
I tried reading this book for a few reasons:
- Dinaw Mengestu is one of the NYers 20 under 40 (He's only around 32!)
- My goodreads friend Charity read it and liked it.
- I have been interested in books on Africa and slavery recently. (This book was about an Ethiopian living in America.)
I read about a third of the book yesterday, and although I liked the author's writing style -- lucid, descriptive -- I didn't find the story compelling enough to continue. This is som More...
- Dinaw Mengestu is one of the NYers 20 under 40 (He's only around 32!)
- My goodreads friend Charity read it and liked it.
- I have been interested in books on Africa and slavery recently. (This book was about an Ethiopian living in America.)
I read about a third of the book yesterday, and although I liked the author's writing style -- lucid, descriptive -- I didn't find the story compelling enough to continue. This is som More...
Jul 19, 2010
Lacey N.
rated it:
Dinaw Mengestu's debut novel is set Washington, DC's Logan Circle neighborhood which, as a DC resident, I thought I knew well. Reading Mengestu's novel taught me how wrong I was.
Sepha is an Ethiopian refugee and small business owner who lives and works in Logan Circle when it was still a poor, black neighborhood with burnt and abandoned remains from the '68 riots. When a white woman and her mixed-race daughter move to the neighborhood, Sepha is unexpectedly thrust into the tension of More...
Sepha is an Ethiopian refugee and small business owner who lives and works in Logan Circle when it was still a poor, black neighborhood with burnt and abandoned remains from the '68 riots. When a white woman and her mixed-race daughter move to the neighborhood, Sepha is unexpectedly thrust into the tension of More...
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Sep 15, 2009
Kelsey
rated it:
Amazing. I'm not sure my view isn't being colored by my recent migration from the District but I thought the prose was beautiful and the story was heartbreakingly honest. This novel was similar in structure to my previous read, Netherland, first person narrator, character focused rather than plot, with a mystery element teasing along the story, but I was completely engrossed while O'Neill never really pulled me in. Not sure these do it justice, but a couple of my favorite passages:
" More...
" More...
Sep 08, 2009
El
rated it:
Seventeen years ago Sepha Stephanos fled Ethiopia during the revolution which called Sepha's father. Now Sepha owns and works in a convenience store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C. In seventeen years (seventeen!) Sepha has made friends with a couple other immigrants from his home country, but that is the extent of his relationships in the entire time. As the neighborhood falls apart around him, and his store continues to fail (it doesn't help that he's rather lacka
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Aug 27, 2009
Leigh
rated it:
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is a snapshot into the life of Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian immigrant who owns and runs a failing convenience store in a poor neighborhood in Washington, DC. It is a book about the American dream, and about the pursuit of happiness in particular. Sepha is able to find fellowship in his friendships with other African immigrants. He is able to find joy in his relationship with Naomi, the precocious daughter of his attractive new neighbor Judith. He is able t
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Feb 22, 2009
Susan
rated it:
This is a beautifully written first-novel by Dinaw Mengestu that deals with the assimilation and experiences of an Ethiopian immigrant in Washington, D.C. Having witnessed his father's brutal attack during the Red Terror, Stephanos flees to the U.S. and settles in depressed the Logan Circle area of Washington, D.C. He opens a small neighborhood convenience store and has high hopes of achieving the American dream, as do his close friends, Joseph from the Congo, who is a waiter at the Colon
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Jul 29, 2011
Catherine
rated it:
I really like dthis book--and I just finished another book this week that I really liked, and that can sometimes make another book of slightly lesser value pale a bit, so I might have liked it even more if I had read nothing great of late. The protagonist is an Ethiopian immigrant who runs a small but largely unsuccessful grocery store, his two African immigrant friends (an engineer from Kenya and a waiter from the COngo), and his neighbors who attempt--briefly--to clena up the neighborhood. S
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Jun 12, 2011
Marieke
rated it:
wow--what a compact, melancholy little novel. written in overlapping layers as the narrator grapples with what has become of his life, it's almost like a snowglobe of sadness, isolation, regret, and loss. shake it, and you see fragments of Sepha's family life in Addis Ababa; shake it again, and you see fragments of his friendship with two other African immigrants, apparently his only close and sustained friendships in America; shake it yet again, you see him navigate with poignancy a new friends
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Feb 23, 2009
Jaime
rated it:
“The beautiful things that heaven bears” is a line from a passage in Dante’s Inferno, in which Dante is emerging from hell. According to one of the characters in the book, “no one can understand that line like an African because that is what we lived through. Hell every day with only glimpses of heaven in between.” The passage is definitely a metaphor for Sepha’s story, whose existence seems to be just one long, endless trudge through life. I enjoy books like this that give me a glimpse of lif
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Dec 27, 2009
Sonoko
rated it:
One of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. Mengestu's quiet voice and simple language, precise and evocative as haiku, tells an unforgettable story of an Ethiopian immigrant's experiences America. The story becomes more than a witness to the scattered lives of those fleeing political chaos through his wi...se and compassionate observations of the characters, who spring to vivid life through spare, telling sentences. It becomes a deeply moving tale of the struggles of people who tr
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