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As a part of my ongoing effort to help provide Ethiopian adoptees with a fuller picture of the positive aspects of Ethiopia, here is another installment in my series about notable Ethiopians. In preparing for my older daughters to come home from Ethiopia, I’ve been interested in the experience of older immigrants from Africa. I blogged awhile back about John Bul Dau, who wrote the book God Grew Tired of Us. Today I am featuring an Ethiopian author who used his own family’s experience of coming to America as a springboard for writing a novel about an Ethiopian immigrant.
Dinaw Mengestu’s first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, came out a few months ago. Mengestu, age 29, left Ethiopia at the age of two with his family following bloody revolutions in Ethiopia in the 1970’s. He now teaches at Georgetown University and lives in New York City.
Mengestu’s novel follows a character who came to America at age 16 and now operates a barely-hanging-on grocery store in a run-down neighborhood in Washington D.C. The neighborhood gradually undergoes a restoration and becomes more racially mixed, which leads to the main character building an unexpected friendship with a white academic and her biracial child.
This book is a little gritty at times. (Translation: there’s language and adult situations. Unlike the John Dau book, I would not recommend you hand this to your 12 year old to read.) But overall the book is well written and interesting. It’s always a good sign when I find myself laughing and reading my husband a paragraph when I’m only on the second page. It’s also a good sign when my husband is impressed enough with what I’ve read him to pick up the book and start reading it himself.
Since Mengestu came to America at the age of two, he grew up in America, not Ethiopia. Yet his writing still manages to portray a fresh view of America in all its strangeness, just as it must feel to a newly arrived immigrant. You can read more about this book in this NPR Story.
Other Notable Ethiopians:
Mary,
Another book along these same lines, but an autobiography, is “Of Beetles and Angels” by Mawi Asgedom. It was recommended by a friend of mine and I too would recommend it. I posted about the book here: http://carpenterschildren.blogspot.com/2007/04/of-beetles-angels.html I would add Mawi Asgedom to the list of notable Ethiopians. Thanks for the list. It will be wonderful to share with our children when they come home.
-Penelope