It is there he spends many evenings with his two close friends - both immigrants from other African nations - and develops a relationship with Judith, a white American politics professor, and her 11-year-old daughter, Naomi.Īfter his discussion, I interviewed Mengestu about the power of community reading programs, the problem with immigration novels, and the books that influenced his novel. Sepha fled Ethiopia as a teenager after his father was murdered, arrived in the U.S., and eventually opened his own convenience store in the poor, primarily black neighborhood of Logan Circle. The book tells the story of Sepha Stephanos, an immigrant, living in Washington, D.C. The absence of the lives of family members,” he continued, while speaking in the UCF Art Gallery on Thursday about what inspired his novel. “What inspired me most was the absence of stories. UCF is celebrating The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, the debut novel of MacArthur Foundation Fellow Dinaw Mengestu, as part of the NEA Big Read. Mengestu - the author of this year’s Big Read at UCF book, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears - moved to the U.S. “I grew up in the shadows of a half-dozen names,” said Dinaw Mengestu, speaking of the family members he never met.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |