Dinaw Mengestu – författare

Seventeen years after fleeing the revolutionary Ethiopia that claimed his father's life, Sepha Stephanos is a man still caught between two existences: the one he left behind, aged nineteen, and the new life he has forged in Washington D.C. Sepha spends his days in a sort of limbo: quietly running his grocery store into the ground, revisiting the Russian classics, and toasting the old days with his friends Kenneth and Joseph, themselves emigrants from Africa. But when a white woman named Judith moves next door with her only daughter, Naomi, Sepha's life seems on the verge of change...

A powerful and moving summer read that explores love, grief and the reality of the contemporary American immigrant experienceJonas, fresh from a failed marriage, is desperate to make sense of the ties that have forged him. How can he dream of a future when he can't make sense of his past? He hits the road, tracing the route that his parents - young Ethiopians in search of an identity as an American couple - took thirty years earlier to Nashville, Tennessee. In a stunning display of imagination he weaves together a history that takes him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents' youth to a brighter vision of his own life in contemporary America, a story - real or invented- that holds the possibility of reconciliation and redemption.‘A story of exile and redemption, beautifully written’ The Times

From acclaimed author Dinaw Mengestu, a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award, The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 award, and a 2012 MacArthur Foundation genius grant, comes an unforgettable love story about a searing affair between an American woman and an African man in 1970s America and an unflinching novel about the fragmentation of lives that straddle countries and histories.  All Our Names is the story of two young men who come of age during an African revolution, drawn from the safe confines of the university campus into the intensifying clamor of the streets outside. But as the line between idealism and violence becomes increasingly blurred, the friends are driven apart—one into the deepest peril, as the movement gathers inexorable force, and the other into the safety of exile in the American Midwest. There, pretending to be an exchange student, he falls in love with a social worker and settles into small-town life. Yet this idyll is inescapably darkened by the secrets of his past: the acts he committed and the work he left unfinished. Most of all, he is haunted by the beloved friend he left behind, the charismatic leader who first guided him to revolution and then sacrificed everything to ensure his freedom.  Elegiac, blazing with insights about the physical and emotional geographies that circumscribe our lives, All Our Names is a marvel of vision and tonal command. Writing within the grand tradition of Naipul, Greene, and Achebe, Mengestu gives us a political novel that is also a transfixing portrait of love and grace, of self-determination and the names we are given and the names we earn. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

The son of Ethiopian immigrants seeks to understand a hidden family history and uncovers a past colored by unexpected loss, addiction, and the enduring emotional pull toward home.After abandoning his once-promising career as a journalist in search of a new life in Paris, Mamush meets Hannah—a photographer whose way of seeing the world shows him the possibility of finding not only love but family. Now, five years later, with his marriage to Hannah on the verge of collapse, he returns to the close-knit immigrant Ethiopian community of Washington, DC, that defined his childhood. At its center is Mamush’s stoic, implacable mother, and Samuel, the larger-than-life father figure whose ceaseless charm and humor have always served as a cover for a harder, more troubling truth. But on the same day that Mamush arrives home in Washington, Samuel is found dead in his garage.With Hannah and their two-year-old son back in Paris, Mamush sets out on an unexpected journey across America in search of answers to questions he'd been told never to ask. As he does so, he begins to understand that perhaps the only chance he has of saving his family and making it back home is to confront not only the unresolved mystery around Samuel’s life and death, but his own troubled memories, and the years spent masking them. Breathtaking, commanding, unforgettable work from one of America’s most prodigiously gifted novelists.

Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution for a new start in the United States. Now he finds himself running a failing grocery store in a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C., his only companions two fellow African immigrants who share his bitter nostalgia and longing for his home continent. Years ago and worlds away Sepha could never have imagined a life of such isolation. As his environment begins to change, hope comes in the form of a friendship with new neighbors Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter. But when a series of racial incidents disturbs the community, Sepha may lose everything all over again.Watch a QuickTime interview with Dinaw Mengestu about this book.

From the prizewinning international literary star: the searing and powerful story of one man''s search for redemption.

Dinaw Mengestu''s first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, earned the young writer comparisons to Bellow, Fitzgerald, and Naipaul, and garnered ecstatic critical praise and awards around the world for its haunting depiction of the immigrant experience. Now Mengestu enriches the themes that defined his debut with a heartbreaking literary masterwork about love, family, and the power of imagination, which confirms his reputation as one of the brightest talents of his generation.

One early September afternoon, Yosef and Mariam, young Ethiopian immigrants who have spent all but their first year of marriage apart, set off on a road trip from their new home in Peoria, Illinois, to Nashville, Tennessee, in search of a new identity as an American couple. Soon, their son, Jonas, will be born in Illinois. Thirty years later, Yosef has died, and Jonas needs to make sense of the volatile generational and cultural ties that have forged him. How can he envision his future without knowing what has come before? Leaving behind his marriage and job in New York, Jonas sets out to retrace his mother and father''s trip and weave together a family history that will take him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents'' youth to his life in the America of today, a story—real or invented—that holds the possibility of reconciliation and redemption.

Watch a Video

LONGLISTED FOR THE FOLIO PRIZE 2015Two young friends join an uprising against Uganda's corrupt regime in the early 1970s. As the line blurs between idealism and violence, one of them flees for his life. In a quiet Midwestern town in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, an African student falls for the woman who helps him settle in. Prejudice overshadows their relationship, yet it is equally haunted by the past.Both men are called Isaac. But are they one and the same?

A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, STYLIST, AND GRANTAA BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Haunting . . . perfectly attuned to what it means to roam freely as an immigrant in America'Guardian'No book this year moved or thrilled me more'Garth Greenwell, author of Small RainA heartbreaking novel about loss, family and exile, from the winner of the Guardian First Book AwardAfter abandoning his once promising career as a journalist in search of a new life in Paris, Mamush meets Helen - a photographer whose way of seeing the world shows him the possibility of finding not only love, but family. Now, five years later, with his marriage on the verge of collapse, he leaves his young family and returns to the close-knit immigrant Ethiopian community of Washington DC that defined his childhood.At its center is Mamush's stoic, implacable mother, and Samuel, the larger-than-life father-figure whose ceaseless charm and humor have always served as cover for a harder, more troubling truth. But on the same day that Mamush arrives home in Washington, Samuel is found dead in his garage.What follows is an unexpected journey across America in search of answers to questions Mamush has been told never to ask. As he does so, he begins to understand that perhaps the only chance he has of saving his family and making it back home is to confront not only the unresolved mystery around Samuel's life and death, but his own troubled memories, and the years spent masking them.'It was obvious from the start that Dinaw Mengestu was adding something extraordinary to American literature'Washington Post'Dinaw Mengestu thinks deeply about how stories are told, especially migrant tales'New York Times'This meticulously crafted gem is not merely read; it is experienced 'Steve Toltz, author of Here Goes Nothing

A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, STYLIST, AND GRANTAA BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Haunting . . . perfectly attuned to what it means to roam freely as an immigrant in America'Guardian'No book this year moved or thrilled me more'Garth Greenwell, author of Small RainA heartbreaking novel about loss, family and exile, from the winner of the Guardian First Book AwardAfter abandoning his once promising career as a journalist in search of a new life in Paris, Mamush meets Helen - a photographer whose way of seeing the world shows him the possibility of finding not only love, but family. Now, five years later, with his marriage on the verge of collapse, he leaves his young family and returns to the close-knit immigrant Ethiopian community of Washington DC that defined his childhood.At its center is Mamush's stoic, implacable mother, and Samuel, the larger-than-life father-figure whose ceaseless charm and humor have always served as cover for a harder, more troubling truth. But on the same day that Mamush arrives home in Washington, Samuel is found dead in his garage.What follows is an unexpected journey across America in search of answers to questions Mamush has been told never to ask. As he does so, he begins to understand that perhaps the only chance he has of saving his family and making it back home is to confront not only the unresolved mystery around Samuel's life and death, but his own troubled memories, and the years spent masking them.'It was obvious from the start that Dinaw Mengestu was adding something extraordinary to American literature'Washington Post'Dinaw Mengestu thinks deeply about how stories are told, especially migrant tales'New York Times'This meticulously crafted gem is not merely read; it is experienced 'Steve Toltz, author of Here Goes Nothing

A powerful and moving summer read that explores love, grief and the reality of the contemporary American immigrant experienceJonas, fresh from a failed marriage, is desperate to make sense of the ties that have forged him. How can he dream of a future when he can't make sense of his past? He hits the road, tracing the route that his parents - young Ethiopians in search of an identity as an American couple - took thirty years earlier to Nashville, Tennessee. In a stunning display of imagination he weaves together a history that takes him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents' youth to a brighter vision of his own life in contemporary America, a story - real or invented- that holds the possibility of reconciliation and redemption.‘A story of exile and redemption, beautifully written’ The Times

Seventeen years after fleeing the revolutionary Ethiopia that claimed his father's life, Sepha Stephanos is a man still caught between two existences: the one he left behind, aged nineteen, and the new life he has forged in Washington D.C. Sepha spends his days in a sort of limbo: quietly running his grocery store into the ground, revisiting the Russian classics, and toasting the old days with his friends Kenneth and Joseph, themselves emigrants from Africa. But when a white woman named Judith moves next door with her only daughter, Naomi, Sepha's life seems on the verge of change...