The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

Part of the TALK series, Friends and Neighbors
Discussion led by Dennis Etzel Jr.

Ethiopian shopkeeper Sepha Stephanos states, "I was hit with the sudden terrible and frightening realization that everything I cared for and loved was either lost or living on without me seven thousand miles away, and that what I had here was not a life, but a poorly constructed substitution made up of one uncle, two friends, a grim store, and a cheap apartment." This novel follows Stephanos as he chronicles his life in the rapidly gentrifying Washington D.C. neighborhood of Logan Circle and his path there from war torn Ethiopia as a young man in the 1970s. The story is about the pain of exile, a changing neighborhood, and friendships forged and lost. Though his friendship with two other African immigrants help ease his transition, it is the companionship of Judith and her bi-racial 11-year-old daughter Naomi that transform his world into something hopeful.

Sponsored by: Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

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For more information about this event, please contact:
Miranda Ericsson Kendall
(785) 215-7405
http://www.tscpl.org