Accessibility links
How to Read the Air NPR coverage of How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu. News, author interviews, critics' picks and more.
NPR logo How to Read the Air

Books

How to Read the Air

by Dinaw Mengestu

Hardcover, 305 pages, Penguin Group USA, List Price: $25.95 |

purchase

Buy Featured Book

Title
How to Read the Air
Author
Dinaw Mengestu

Your purchase helps support NPR programming. How?

Book Summary

The son of Ethopian immigrants decides to retrace the journey his parents took just after they moved to America, but before he was born, in order to make sense of the volatile generational and cultural ties that have forged him. By the author of The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears.

NPR stories about How to Read the Air

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

toggle caption
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

Listen · 5:47
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/130833146/130999666" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
'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

toggle caption
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'

Listen · 8:40
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/130590052/130610295" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript