the beautiful things that heaven bears by dinaw mengestu

Joseph and Kenneth are enthusiastic about Sepha’s step toward the American dream, but secretly, Sepha has no ambition for his store other than hiding behind the counter and reading books all day until the “world comes to an end” (146). With Kenneth’s help, he soon opens a small convenience store down the block in Logan Circle. It is all he can afford, and he claims to like the anonymity that comes with being poor and black in a neglected neighborhood. He has no plan, but he chooses a small apartment to rent in a run-down area of town. In less than a year, Sepha decides to move out of his uncle’s apartment and strike out on his own. Sepha does not assimilate well, and most days he prefers solitude and apathy to the company of his friends. There, Sepha meets Joseph and Kenneth, who are also recent immigrants from Africa, and the three young men become friends. His uncle eventually gets him a job at the Capitol Hotel, where he also works. For several months, Sepha holes up in the apartment and barely speaks to anyone. He arrives in America and lives with an uncle in an apartment building in Washington, DC, filled with other Ethiopian immigrants. By the time Sepha reaches America, the only thing he has left of his family is a pair of his father’s cheap cuff links. The next morning, Sepha’s mother hands him all their valuables and sends him to the border. The soldiers kill Sepha’s father, forcing Sepha to flee his homeland. Sepha is 16 years old when soldiers in Ethiopia find his student activist flyers, which his father claims as his own. As the three days pass, Sepha reflects on the intervening years, particularly the previous winter and his relationship with a new neighbor, to understand his present and future.

The story is set in Washington, DC, 17 years after Sepha fled the revolution in Ethiopia. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears takes place between May 2 and May 4, when the narrator and protagonist, Sepha Stephanos, learns that he is being evicted from his store. He is the author of three novels, a contributor to publications such as Rolling Stone and Harper’s, and director of the Written Arts Program at Bard College.

Mengestu is an Ethiopian American who, like his protagonist, was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during the political conflict known as the Red Terror.

The beautiful things that heaven bears by dinaw mengestu