Synopses & Reviews
A vibrant debut novel, set in Brooklyn and Bangladesh, follows three young women and one family struggling to make peace with secrets and their past
For as long as she can remember, Ella has longed to feel at home. Orphaned as a child after her parents murder, and afflicted with hallucinations at dusk, shes always felt more at ease in nature than with people. She traveled from Bangladesh to Brooklyn to live with the Saleems: her uncle Anwar, aunt Hashi, and their beautiful daughter, Charu, her complete opposite. One summer, when Ella returns home from college, she discovers Charus friend Mayaan Islamic clerics runaway daughterasleep in her bedroom.
As the girls have a summer of clandestine adventure and sexual awakenings, Anwarowner of a popular botanical apothecaryhas his own secrets, threatening his thirty-year marriage. But when tragedy strikes, the Saleems find themselves blamed. To keep his family from unraveling, Anwar takes them on a fated trip to Bangladesh, to reckon with the past, their extended family, and each other.
Review
"Mengestu, himself an Ethiopian immigrant, engages the reader in a deftly drawn portrait of dreams in the face of harsh realities from the perspective of immigrants." Booklist
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"[A] poignant story providing food for thought for those concerned with poverty and immigration....Recommended." Library Journal
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"Mengestu skirts immigrant-literature cliches and paints a beautiful portrait of a complex, conflicted man struggling with questions of love andloyalty. A nuanced slice of immigrant life." Kirkus Reviews
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"A startling, necessary novel. Dinaw Mengestu's vision of America is clear and precise, opening our eyes to the country we inhabit, for better and for worse." Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook
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"This is a wonderful novel. It is not only the story of an Ethiopian immigrant living in Washington, DC it is also, in the end, the story of this country, of the dreamers who continue to dream it despite the unfolding, unforgiving American nightmare. Dinaw Mengestu is a marvelous, abundantly talented writer." Rattawut Lapcharoensap, author of Sightseeing
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"The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is unlike any other novel I've ever read I was captured from the first page, with this wry, melancholic and very funny trio of immigrant friends who have made their own small place in this world. Stephanos, with his voice of hope and memory and survival, is a marvelous creation, and his attempts at love and salvation are rendered with exquisite care and humor by Dinaw Mengestu, a shining entry into the literary world." Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales and Highwire Moon
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"Mengestu also has a sense of humor that is pitch perfect, falling between complete despair and pure sarcasm." Los Angeles Times
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"[Mengestu's] straightforward language and his low-key voice combine to make a compelling narrative, one that loops back in time yet seems to move forward with an even pace." Dallas Morning News
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"The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is not a conventional immigrant novel....Mengestu has something more ambitious and fundamentally unsettling in mind." Chicago Tribune
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"The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears is wonderfully written and moving. It gives personality and depth to the oft-mocked immigrant deli owner (Apu, anyone?) and draws a portrait of someone all readers can relate to. The story is carried by the wry humor of the observations that Stephanos and his friends make about life in America, and it's in those moments that Mengetsu does his best and most surprising work." Anya C. Yurchyshyn, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)
Synopsis
Seventeen years after fleeing the Ethiopian revolution to America, Sepha Stephanos runs a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where he witnesses a series of racially charged incidents and bitterly reflects on his past and the differences between his actual prospects and the life he imagined. A first novel.
Synopsis
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 home continent. Years ago and worlds away Sepha could never have imagined a life of such isolation. As his environment begins to change, hope comes in the form of a friendship with new neighbors Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter. But when a series of racial incidents disturbs the community, Sepha may lose everything all over again.
Watch a QuickTime interview with Dinaw Mengestu about this book.
Synopsis
A gritty, riveting, and wholly original murder mystery from PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author and 2015 Edgar Awards finalist Chris Abani
Before he can retire, Las Vegas detective Salazar is determined to solve a recent spate of murders. When he encounters a pair of conjoined twins with a container of blood near their car, hes sure he has apprehended the killers, and enlists the help of Dr. Sunil Singh, a South African transplant who specializes in the study of psychopaths. As Sunil tries to crack the twins, the implications of his research grow darker. Haunted by his betrayal of loved ones back home during apartheid, he seeks solace in the love of Asia, a prostitute with hopes of escaping that life. But Sunils own troubled past is fast on his heels in the form of a would-be assassin.
Suspenseful through the last page, The Secret History of Las Vegas is Chris Abanis most accomplished work to date, with his trademark visionary prose and a striking compassion for the inner lives of outsiders.
Synopsis
A vibrant debut novel following one family and three young women coming of age in Brooklyn and Bangladesh For as long as she can remember, Ella has longed to feel at home. Orphaned as a child after her parents murder in the aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War, Ella came to Brooklyn to live with the Saleem family: her uncle Anwar, aunt Hashi, and their daughter Charu, from whom she couldnt be more different. When Ella returns home from college one summer, she discovers Charus friend Mayaa local Islamic clerics runaway daughterasleep in her bedroom. The two quickly grow close, blurring the line between friendship and love.
As the girls harbor their secrets, Anwarowner of a popular apothecaryhas his own, one that threatens his thirty-year marriage. When tragedy strikes and the Saleems are blamed, it nearly tears apart the family. Ella, Charu, Anwar, and Hashi travel to Bangladesh to reckon with the past, their extended family, and each other.
Synopsis
Before he can retire, Las Vegas detective Salazar is determined to solve a recent spate of murders. When he encounters a pair of conjoined twins with a container of blood near their car, hes sure he has apprehended the killers, and enlists the help of Dr. Sunil Singh, a South African transplant who specializes in the study of psychopaths. As Sunil tries to crack the twins, the implications of his research grow darker. Haunted by his betrayal of loved ones back home during apartheid, he seeks solace in the love of Asia, a prostitute with hopes of escaping that life. But Sunils own troubled past is fast on his heels in the form of a would-be assassin.
Suspenseful through the last page, The Secret History of Las Vegas is Chris Abanis most accomplished work to date, with his trademark visionary prose and a striking compassion for the inner lives of outsiders.
About the Author
Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978. In 1980, he immigrated to the United States with his mother and sister, joining his father, who had fled Ethiopia during the Red Terror. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Columbia University's MFA program in fiction and the recipient of a 2006 fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts.