Immigrant of the Day: Dinaw Mengestu (Ethiopia)

Dinaw Mengestu is an award-winning American novelist and writer, who was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In addition to two novels, he has written for Rolling Stone on the war in Darfur, and for Jane Magazine on the conflict in northern Uganda. His writing has also appeared in Harper’s, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications.

Mengestu’s family left Ethiopia when he was two years old; he was raised in Peoria, Illinois and, later, the suburbs of Chicago. He received his B.A. in English from Georgetown University, and his MFA in fiction from Columbia University.

 
Mengestu’s début novel, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears, was published in 2007. It tells the story of Sepha Stephanos, who seventeen years ago fled the Ethiopian Revolution for a new start in the United States.

Mengestu’s second novel, How to Read the Air, was released in 2010.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.

KJ