Dinaw Mengestu
{{short description|Ethiopian-American novelist and writer (born 1978)}}{{More citations needed|date=October 2024}}{{Infobox writer
| name = Dinaw Mengestu
| image = File:Dinaw Mengestu 3041199.JPG
| imagesize =
| caption = Dinaw Mengestu in March 2014
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1978|06|30|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| death_date =
| death_place =
| occupation = Novelist, professor of creative writing
| nationality = American
| education = Georgetown University (BA)
Columbia University (MFA)
| Wife =
| movement = Realism, postmodernism
| signature =
| awards = MacArthur Fellow, 5 under 35 honoree
}}
Dinaw Mengestu (ዲናው መንግስቱ) (born 30 June 1978) is an Ethiopian American novelist and writer. In addition to three novels, he has written for Rolling Stone on the war in Darfur, and for Jane Magazine on the conflict in northern Uganda.{{cite magazine |first=Dinaw |last=Mengestu |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/11546099/the_tragedy_of_darfur |title=The Tragedy of Darfur |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=7 September 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114003211/https://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/11546099/the_tragedy_of_darfur |archive-date=14 January 2009}} His writing has also appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications.
He is the Program Director of Written Arts at Bard College.{{Cite web |last=Relations |first=Bard Public |title=Award-Winning Writer Dinaw Mengestu Named John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor in the Humanities at Bard College |url=https://www.bard.edu/news/details/?id=17387&prefurl=dinaw-mengestu-named-john-d-and-catherine-t-macarthur-professor-in-the-humanities-2020-12-17 |access-date=2023-07-25 |website=www.bard.edu |language=en}} In 2007 the National Book Foundation named him a "5 under 35" honoree. Since his first book was published in 2007, he has received numerous literary awards, and was selected as a MacArthur Fellow in 2012.{{cite web|title=2012 MacArthur Foundation 'Genius Grant' Winners |url=http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2012-macarthur-foundation-genius-grant-winners#overlay-context=users/rjagodzinski |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121002000603/http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2012-macarthur-foundation-genius-grant-winners |url-status=dead |archive-date=2 October 2012 |date=1 October 2012 |publisher=AP |access-date=1 October 2012 }}
Early life
Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1978, during a period of political repression that became known as the Red Terror. His father, who was an executive with Ethiopian Airlines, applied for political asylum while on a business trip in Italy; Mengestu's mother was pregnant with him at the time. Two years later, when Mengestu was a toddler, he, his mother and his sister were reunited with his father in the United States."Dinaw Mengestu." Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 66. Gale, 2008. Retrieved via Gale In Context: Biography database, 17 August 2019. The family settled in Peoria, Illinois, where Mengestu's father at first worked as a factory laborer, before rising to a management position. Later the family moved to the Chicago area, where Mengestu graduated from Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois.{{cite news|last=Thomas|first=Mike|title=Writer's long road to 'genius' is a story of overcoming racism|url=http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/15777984-418/writers-long-road-to-genius.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928000258/http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/15777984-418/writers-long-road-to-genius.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 28, 2013|access-date=22 October 2012|newspaper=Chicago Sun Times|date=October 20, 2012}}
Mengestu received his B.A. in English from Georgetown University, and his MFA in writing from Columbia University in 2005."[https://arts.columbia.edu/profiles/dinaw-mengestu Dinaw Mengestu]" (alumnus profile). Columbia University School of the Arts. arts.columbia.edu. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
Career
Mengestu's début novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, was published in the United States in March 2007 by Riverhead Books. It was published in the United Kingdom as Children of the Revolution,{{cite web |url=https://www.hodder.co.uk/authors/detail.page?id=zew8FDywlm9sMVbfPkbolTkpNkjecgO8VLeiHR5UvqXwOwBq2Dg1ccbJ9MCb |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303234341/https://www.hodder.co.uk/authors/detail.page?id=zew8FDywlm9sMVbfPkbolTkpNkjecgO8VLeiHR5UvqXwOwBq2Dg1ccbJ9MCb |archive-date=3 March 2016 |title=Dinaw Mengestu |publisher=Hodder & Stoughton. hodder.co.uk}} issued in May 2007 by Jonathan Cape. It tells the story of Sepha Stephanos, who fled the warfare of the Ethiopian Revolution 17 years before and immigrated to the United States. He owns and runs a failing grocery store in Logan Circle, then a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C. that is becoming gentrified. He and two fellow African immigrants, all of them single, deal with feelings of isolation and nostalgia for home. Stephanos becomes involved with a white woman and her daughter, who move into a renovated house in the neighborhood.
Mengestu's second novel, How to Read the Air, was published in October 2010.[http://www.riverheadbooks.com/2010/06/two-riverhead-authors-dinaw-mengestu-and-salvatore-scibona-make-the-new-yorkers-20-under-40-fiction-writers-to-watc.html "Two Riverhead Authors: Dinaw Mengestu and Salvatore Scibona Make the New Yorker's 20 under 40 Fiction Writers to Watch"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100619094937/http://www.riverheadbooks.com/2010/06/two-riverhead-authors-dinaw-mengestu-and-salvatore-scibona-make-the-new-yorkers-20-under-40-fiction-writers-to-watc.html |date=2010-06-19 }}, Riverhead Books Part of the novel was excerpted in the July 12, 2010, issue of The New Yorker, after Mengestu was selected as one of their "20 under 40" writers of 2010.[http://www.riverheadbooks.com/2010/07/the-new-yorker-excerpts-dinaw-mengestus-forthcoming-novel-how-to-read-the-air.html "The New Yorker Excerpts Dinaw Mengestu's Forthcoming Novel 'How to Read the Air'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110715191210/http://www.riverheadbooks.com/2010/07/the-new-yorker-excerpts-dinaw-mengestus-forthcoming-novel-how-to-read-the-air.html |date=2011-07-15 }}, Riverhead Books This novel was also the winner of the 2011 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, a literary award established by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation in 2007.Hatley, James. [http://www.225batonrouge.com/article20120501/225BATONROUGE/120529945/0/past-issues "Making Gaines"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606235552/http://www.225batonrouge.com/article20120501/225BATONROUGE/120529945/0/past-issues |date=2014-06-06 }}, "225", Louisiana, 22 May 2012.
Mengestu's first two novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
In 2014, he was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 project as one of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with the potential and the talent to define the trends of the region.[http://www.hayfestival.com/artistlist-m-p.aspx Africa39], Hay Festival.
Awards and honors
= Literary honors =
- New York Times Notable Book 2007
= Literary awards =
= Honors =
- The New Yorker "20 Under 40", 2010Jennifer L. Knox, [http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/06/14/100614fi_fiction_20under40_qa_dinaw-mengestu "20 under 40: Q. & A. | Dinaw Mengestu"], The New Yorker, 14 & 21 June 2010.
- Lannan Fiction Fellowship, 2007
- National Book Award Foundation, 5 Under 35 Award, 2007
- MacArthur Foundation Fellow, 2012
Bibliography
{{Expand list|date=December 2018}}
= Books =
- {{cite book |first=Dinaw |last=Mengestu |author-mask=2 |title=The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears |title-link=The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears |edition=1st |location=New York |publisher=Riverhead Books |year=2007 |isbn=9781594489402}}Published in the UK as Children of the revolution (2008).
- {{cite book |first=Dinaw |last=Mengestu |author-mask=2 |title=How to Read the Air |year=2010 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9781594487705}}
- {{cite book |first=Dinaw |last=Mengestu |author-mask=2 |title=All Our Names |year=2014 |isbn=9780385349987 |publisher=Knopf}}
- {{cite book |first=Dinaw |last=Mengestu |author-mask=2 |title=Someone Like Us |year=2024 |isbn=9780385350006 |edition=hardcover 1st |publisher=Knopf}}
= Essays =
- {{cite journal |author=Mengestu, Dinaw |author-mask=2|date=Autumn 2009 |title=Big money |journal=Granta |issue=108 |pages=135–149 |url=http://www.granta.com/Archive/108/Big-Money/1}}
Free reading
- {{cite book | first = Dinaw | last = Mengestu | author-mask = 2 | title = The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears | url = https://archive.org/details/beautifulthingst00meng | url-access = registration | location = New York | publisher = Riverhead Books | year = 2007 }}
References
{{reflist|30em}}
External links
{{Commons category|Dinaw Mengestu}}
- Linda Kulman, [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18932579 "Dinaw Mengestu Captures Immigrant Life"], NPR, 19 February 2008.
- Sarah Crown, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/dec/05/firstbookaw.gurardianfirstbookaward "Ethiopian-American wins Guardian First Book Award"], The Guardian, 5 December 2007
- [http://www.culturebase.net/artist.php?4128 "Dinaw Mengestu"], culturebase.net
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Category:American writers of African descent
Category:21st-century American novelists
Category:American male novelists
Category:American magazine journalists
Category:Georgetown University alumni
Category:Columbia University School of the Arts alumni
Category:Ethiopian emigrants to the United States
Category:Writers from Peoria, Illinois
Category:People from Addis Ababa
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:Novelists from Illinois