Bard Professor Dinaw Mengestu Named President of PEN America
Dinaw Mengestu. Photo by Anne-Emmanuelle Robicquet
Dinaw Mengestu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and director of the Written Arts Program at Bard College, has been elected president of PEN America, a 103-year-old writers organization whose mission is to celebrate literature and defend freedom of expression. Mengestu, who is also the founder and director of the Center for Ethics and Writing at Bard, will assume leadership at PEN America at a time when threats to freedom of speech are on the rise globally.
“Many groups advocate for free speech. But it’s the relationship between free expression and literature and writers that makes PEN America’s work so unique,” Mengestu said in an interview with the New York Times. “If we lose awareness of how important our culture of literary and artistic production is, our understanding of free expression goes with it.”
As PEN America’s president, Mengestu will prioritize an active literary presence on the board to ensure that free expression work is not only at the forefront, but happening in partnership with the literary community at large. He also seeks to strengthen the connection with PEN’s international chapters to advance the organization’s mission for freedom of expression worldwide.
“Dinaw Mengestu has spent his career illuminating the borders between countries, histories, and identities, and bringing readers into the lives of those too often pushed to the margins,” said Summer Lopez, PEN America’s interim co-CEO and chief of Free Expression programs. “As he steps into the role of PEN America president, his unwavering commitment to free expression, his advocacy for writers under threat around the world, and his profound belief in literature’s power to humanize across deep divides will guide the organization through this pivotal moment for democracy and the written word.”
Mengestu assumes the presidency and becomes the chair of the PEN America Board of Trustees for a two-year term, following his election by the organization’s membership at its annual general meeting on Wednesday evening. A PEN America trustee since 2016, he succeeds Jennifer Finney Boylan, the trailblazing trans author and LGBTQ+ activist whose 18 books include novels, thrillers, memoirs, and a YA adventure series.
Dinaw Mengestu is the author of four novels, Someone Like Us (Knopf 2024), All Our Names (Knopf, 2014), How To Read the Air (Riverhead, 2010), and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead, 2007), all New York Times Notable Books. Born in Ethiopia, his articles and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, and Rolling Stone. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award, Guardian First Book Award, and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors. His most recent novel, Someone Like Us, was chosen as one of President Obama’s 10 best books of the year, and his work has been translated into more than 15 languages. He holds a BA from Georgetown University and an MFA from Columbia University. He is the director of the Written Arts Program at Bard College and the founder and director of the Center for Ethics and Writing.
Post Date: 12-18-2025
“Many groups advocate for free speech. But it’s the relationship between free expression and literature and writers that makes PEN America’s work so unique,” Mengestu said in an interview with the New York Times. “If we lose awareness of how important our culture of literary and artistic production is, our understanding of free expression goes with it.”
As PEN America’s president, Mengestu will prioritize an active literary presence on the board to ensure that free expression work is not only at the forefront, but happening in partnership with the literary community at large. He also seeks to strengthen the connection with PEN’s international chapters to advance the organization’s mission for freedom of expression worldwide.
“Dinaw Mengestu has spent his career illuminating the borders between countries, histories, and identities, and bringing readers into the lives of those too often pushed to the margins,” said Summer Lopez, PEN America’s interim co-CEO and chief of Free Expression programs. “As he steps into the role of PEN America president, his unwavering commitment to free expression, his advocacy for writers under threat around the world, and his profound belief in literature’s power to humanize across deep divides will guide the organization through this pivotal moment for democracy and the written word.”
Mengestu assumes the presidency and becomes the chair of the PEN America Board of Trustees for a two-year term, following his election by the organization’s membership at its annual general meeting on Wednesday evening. A PEN America trustee since 2016, he succeeds Jennifer Finney Boylan, the trailblazing trans author and LGBTQ+ activist whose 18 books include novels, thrillers, memoirs, and a YA adventure series.
Dinaw Mengestu is the author of four novels, Someone Like Us (Knopf 2024), All Our Names (Knopf, 2014), How To Read the Air (Riverhead, 2010), and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead, 2007), all New York Times Notable Books. Born in Ethiopia, his articles and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, and Rolling Stone. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award, Guardian First Book Award, and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors. His most recent novel, Someone Like Us, was chosen as one of President Obama’s 10 best books of the year, and his work has been translated into more than 15 languages. He holds a BA from Georgetown University and an MFA from Columbia University. He is the director of the Written Arts Program at Bard College and the founder and director of the Center for Ethics and Writing.
Post Date: 12-18-2025