Dinaw Mengestu Interviewed in World Literature Today

Dinaw Mengestu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and director of the Written Arts Program at Bard College, was interviewed in World Literature Today about his latest novel, Someone Like Us. “In this brilliant novel, both mystery and meditation, Mengestu challenges that dominant narrative with a multiplicity of stories which make it impossible for us to look away,” writes Renee H. Shea for World Literature Today. Mengestu spoke with Shea about how questions of ethics and representation appear in his work, how photographs taken by his wife appear throughout the text to offer another narrative within the novel, and how he approaches physical and geographical movement of his characters across time, place, continent, and cultures. “The novel is not just about seeing that community in one moment in time but over the course of an entire generation,” Mengestu said. “Looking more deeply into that world is the heart of this story, and in many ways this is the community that I wanted to reach out to the most.”
 

Post Date: 02-25-2025