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Dinaw Mengestu

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All Our Names

Review

Book Reviews

Dinaw Mengestu Embraces The Vastness Of Love And War

Meg Wolitzer says All Our Names, told in the alternating voices of two lovers, is a subtle masterpiece. It tackles huge themes — relationships, violence, identity, racism — but never overreaches.

Dinaw Mengestu Embraces The Vastness Of Love And War

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From Uganda To The Midwest, 'All Our Names' Draws Portraits Of Love
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The Week's Best Stories From NPR Books

From Uganda To The Midwest, 'All Our Names' Draws Portraits Of Love

Dinaw Mengestu is known for writing about the immigrant experience, but his latest novel takes a slightly different tack: It's about love born out of loneliness and need, and complicated by war.

From Uganda To The Midwest, 'All Our Names' Draws Portraits Of Love

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From Dinaw Mengestu, A 'How To' With Few Answers

Dinaw Mengestu is also the author of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978, he moved with his family to the United States in 1980. David Burnett hide caption

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David Burnett

Review

Books We Like

From Dinaw Mengestu, A 'How To' With Few Answers

Fresh Air

Dinaw Mengestu's How to Read the Air is an unsentimental meditation on the immigrant experience and the illusory idea of asylum. With lyrical prose, he reassesses the by-your-bootstraps mythology associated with American mobility.

From Dinaw Mengestu, A 'How To' With Few Answers

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'Heaven Bears' Author Finds Beauty In 'The Air'

Dinaw Mengestu is also the author of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978, his family immigrated to the U.S. 1980. He now lives in New York City. David Burnett hide caption

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David Burnett

Author Interviews

'Heaven Bears' Author Finds Beauty In 'The Air'

Dinaw Mengestu follows up The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears with a new novel: How to Read the Air. As his own marriage unravels in New York, Jonas — the son of two Ethiopian immigrants — retraces the journey of his parents' lives.

'Heaven Bears' Author Finds Beauty In 'The Air'

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Art & Design

Ethiopian-American Artists Make Their Mark

Author Dinaw Mengestu is among a generation of Ethiopian Americans whose families fled the East African nation in the 1970s and '80s. Now their writing, music and art are adding a new chapter to the epic of American immigration.

Ethiopian-American Artists Make Their Mark

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