Mengestu, Dinaw 1978-

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Mengestu, Dinaw 1978-

PERSONAL:

Name is pronounced "dih-now men-guess-too"; born 1978, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; immigrated to the United States, 1980. Education: Georgetown University, graduated; Columbia University, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Writer, novelist, journalist, and educator. Lannan Visiting Writer, Georgetown University, 2007. Worked as a teacher in an after-school program in Harlem and as a teacher of English as a second language at the City University of New York.

AWARDS, HONORS:

New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in fiction, 2006.

WRITINGS:

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (novel), Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Harper's, Jane, and Rolling Stone.

SIDELIGHTS:

Dinaw Mengestu is a novelist, educator, and journalist. Born in Ethiopia in 1978, Mengestu came to the United States in 1980 with his mother and sister. There, they reunited with his father, who had fled their country two years earlier to avoid the communist revolution occurring there. As an author, Mengestu "belongs to that special group of American voices produced by global upheavals and intentional, if sometimes forced, migrations," remarked Chris Abani in the Los Angeles Times. These writers must constantly work to reconcile the life and country they have left behind with the new life they are building for themselves in America, Abani noted. Mengestu's debut novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, "is the wrenching and important book he has made of this struggle," Abani stated.

The story takes place over eight months in Logan Circle, an impoverished inner-city Washington, DC, neighborhood that is gradually being renovated and gentrified. The main protagonist, Sepha Stephanos, is an immigrant from Ethiopia who for seventeen years has run a small grocery store. Resigned to his situation, Sepha concentrates on his business, which is dwindling in the face of upscale stores moving into the area, while nourishing himself intellectually with books and literature. His two best friends are also African immigrants: Kenneth from Kenya and Joseph from Congo, both of whom went to college in America and took on professional jobs. The three spend much time contemplating the home they left and the new lives they are building in America, but "the book's molten core belongs to Sepha and his witty though elegiac voice," observed Abani. The men, especially Sepha, have reached a level of peace and acceptance of their American lives, but their complacency is threatened by a new arrival in the neighborhood. When an American woman, Judith, a lovely white academic, and her mixed-race daughter, Naomi, move into a run-down house next to Sepha's store and begin renovating it, their efforts and their presence are felt throughout Logan Circle as emblematic of the upscale trends that threaten to change the neighborhood forever. Soon, however, Judith and Sepha have formed a close friendship, and Naomi begins to see him almost as a mentor, spending days in his store reading and discussing literature. As their relationship develops, Sepha begins to see the possibilities of the world beyond the microcosm of Africa he has created with his friends, and entertains a glimmer of hope for something more than friendship with the alluring Judith.

Booklist reviewer Vanessa Bush saw Mengestu's novel as a "deftly drawn portrait of dreams in the face of harsh realities" as told from the immigrant point of view. "It's a poignant story providing food for thought for those concerned with poverty and immigration," commented Debbie Bogenschutz in the Library Journal. A Publishers Weekly contributor remarked that "Mengestu's assured prose and haunting set pieces … are heart-rending and indelible." Mengestu "paints a beautiful portrait of a complex, conflicted man struggling with questions of love and loyalty," observed a Kirkus Reviews critic. "With The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, Mengestu has made, and made well, a novel that is a retelling of the immigrant experience, one in which immigrants must come to terms with the past and find a way to be loyal to two ideas of home: the one they left and the one they've made in America," Abani concluded. People reviewer Francine Prose named the book a "tender, thoughtful novel" that considers important themes such as the "meaning of home and family, of nationality and exile, of isolation and connection."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 1, 2006, review of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, p. 22.

Books, February 25, 2007, Laura Ciolkowski, "An Emigre's Search for Permanence in the United States," review of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, p. 5.

Entertainment Weekly, March 2, 2007, Jennifer Reese, "Disturbin' Renewal," review of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, p. 70.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2006, review of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, p. 1150.

Library Journal, November 15, 2006, Debbie Bogenschutz, review of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, p. 58.

Los Angeles Times, March 4, 2007, Chris Abani, review of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears.

People, March 12, 2007, Francine Prose, review of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, p. 53.

Publishers Weekly, November 21, 2005, Matthew Thornton, "First Novel to Riverhead," p. 6; August 14, 2006, Liz Hartman, review of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, p. 87; November 20, 2006, review of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, p. 34.