The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

By Dinaw Mengestu,

Book cover of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

Book description

Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution for a new start in the United States. Now he finds himself running a failing grocery store in a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C., his only companions two fellow African immigrants who share his bitter nostalgia and longing for his…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Mengistu poignantly demonstrates to me the alienation that can and does haunt the migrant over time, providing deep insights into many of the things that make us human.

I found this novel highly accessible and masterly in its panoramic view of an Ethiopian immigrant’s experiences in the US. An immigrant whose life is changed in many ways but remains unchanged in others after many years in the US. 

From Benjamin's list on the complexities of migration.

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Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…

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