Through a
round aperture I saw appear,
Some of the
beautiful things that Heaven bears,
Where we came forth, and
once more saw the stars.
- Dante Alighieri's Inferno
In this
story of Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian immigrant to Washington DC, who owns a
small convenient store, his friend declares these words from Dante’s Inferno to
be the most perfect lines of poetry ever written. Stepha’s friend Joseph, who
is an immigrant from Congo, considers Dante’s words as he’s coming out of hell
as a parallel to the experience of an African whose life in his home country is
hell with only glimpses of heaven. A third friend, Kenneth from Kenya, resents
Joseph’s tendency to find metaphors in their American life for their former
lives in African nations dealing with harsh corruption and oppression. As the
story unfolds, it becomes clear that each member of this trio represents a
different perspective of coping with the change and sense of belonging that
these immigrants encounter.
Sepha, our narrator, struggles with maintaining motivation to run his shop, and there is a sense in the story that he comes up as mediocre in the view of his family and friends. He wants to fit into a life in America, but at the same down is weighed down by wanting to go home and knowing that would be an act of simultaneously moving forward and going backward—a tension that he indicates can truly only be felt by an immigrant. Representing another perspective, Joseph not only admires Dante’s works, but also writes his own poetry in the style of the Commedia. The difference is that his work is without a heaven and traces the history of the Congo from King Leopold through Lumumba to Mobutu. He is constantly aware of the sense of history of the African continent and consistently initiates a trivia game with his friends where they name a dictator, coup, and its year, and this game showcases his function as the memory keeper, of sorts. Kenneth, on the other hand, has immersed himself in his American life as a businessman. While the struggles of Sepha and Joseph are strongest within themselves, Kenneth is fully accepting of his life and his work—it is the people around him who tend not to see him as the American businessman he wants to be viewed as. He has no sentimental attachment to the thought of returning to African where his illiterate father was oppressed and had nothing. His struggle for acceptance is demonstrated in the stories about his boss who is, perhaps unintentionally, demeaning and does things like ask Kenneth to take one of the team and come into the office alone on Christmas. Kenneth, while embracing the opportunities and sense of accomplishment he feels, urges the same in Sepha and Joseph, often finding their reluctance to cope the same way he has frustrating.
To me, the African continent, its history, its present, and the ways it is perceived are fascinating. So often, this giant continent gets generalized in some extreme ways, seemingly forgetting that the prevailing effects of post-colonialism are different across nations, and often dependent on the practices of the colonizing nation. Despite its huge population, I think African-authored stories involving Africa are underrepresented in the literary canon—the two obvious canonical African texts being Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart, of course, only one of which is written from an African's perspective (in fact, Chinue Achebe has a bit to say about Conrad in the essay “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”). As much as The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears takes place in Washington DC, what the stories of the three main characters demonstrate over and over again is how ever-present their past in Africa is in their present.
Mengestu, Dinaw. The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears. London: Riverhead / Penguin, 2007.
Sepha, our narrator, struggles with maintaining motivation to run his shop, and there is a sense in the story that he comes up as mediocre in the view of his family and friends. He wants to fit into a life in America, but at the same down is weighed down by wanting to go home and knowing that would be an act of simultaneously moving forward and going backward—a tension that he indicates can truly only be felt by an immigrant. Representing another perspective, Joseph not only admires Dante’s works, but also writes his own poetry in the style of the Commedia. The difference is that his work is without a heaven and traces the history of the Congo from King Leopold through Lumumba to Mobutu. He is constantly aware of the sense of history of the African continent and consistently initiates a trivia game with his friends where they name a dictator, coup, and its year, and this game showcases his function as the memory keeper, of sorts. Kenneth, on the other hand, has immersed himself in his American life as a businessman. While the struggles of Sepha and Joseph are strongest within themselves, Kenneth is fully accepting of his life and his work—it is the people around him who tend not to see him as the American businessman he wants to be viewed as. He has no sentimental attachment to the thought of returning to African where his illiterate father was oppressed and had nothing. His struggle for acceptance is demonstrated in the stories about his boss who is, perhaps unintentionally, demeaning and does things like ask Kenneth to take one of the team and come into the office alone on Christmas. Kenneth, while embracing the opportunities and sense of accomplishment he feels, urges the same in Sepha and Joseph, often finding their reluctance to cope the same way he has frustrating.
To me, the African continent, its history, its present, and the ways it is perceived are fascinating. So often, this giant continent gets generalized in some extreme ways, seemingly forgetting that the prevailing effects of post-colonialism are different across nations, and often dependent on the practices of the colonizing nation. Despite its huge population, I think African-authored stories involving Africa are underrepresented in the literary canon—the two obvious canonical African texts being Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart, of course, only one of which is written from an African's perspective (in fact, Chinue Achebe has a bit to say about Conrad in the essay “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”). As much as The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears takes place in Washington DC, what the stories of the three main characters demonstrate over and over again is how ever-present their past in Africa is in their present.
Mengestu, Dinaw. The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears. London: Riverhead / Penguin, 2007.
