Reconfiguring the Afro-American Diaspora in Dinaw Mengestu’s Fiction: The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears

Abstract

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, is the first novel by the Ethiopian author Dinaw Mengestu. Published in 2007 by the Penguin Group, the novel focuses on the life of Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian immigrant living in Washington, D.C. after fleeing his country's revolution seventeen years earlier. Running a failing grocery store he ruminates on the past as he faces his own inward crisis of displacement and identity while simultaneously marveling at the gentrification of his neighborhood. This book took almost four years to write and Mengestu spent the most of a year revising it. The original version of this novel was published in the UK as Children of the Revolution. The name was changed by the publishers before being published in the US because they did not want the book to sound political.[1] The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (2007) was translated into 12 languages, and named a New York Times Notable Book. The book was also awarded The Guardian First Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction,[2] among numerous other honors.