ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON Bard College announces the appointment of esteemed writer Dinaw Mengestu as Catherine T. MacArthur Professor in the Humanities, effective spring 2021. Mengestu, a recipient of the 2012 MacArthur Foundation Award, is director of the Written Arts Program at Bard. He is the author of three novels: The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (2008), How to Read the Air (2010), and All Our Names (2014). For more information about Bard’s Written Arts Program, please visit writtenarts.bard.edu.
âA writer of extraordinary accomplishment and humanity, Dinaw Mengestu has brought signal openness, growth, and energy to the Written Arts Program at Bard since his arrival in 2016,â said Bardâs Dean of the College, Deirdre DâAlbertis.
The Wife’s Tale is an impassioned and elegant biography of the author’s grandmother, who was born in the 1920s and lived to be nearly 100. It is an intimate glimpse into how one remarkable woman experienced some of the most significant moments in Ethiopia’s modern history.
Mengestu’s story of an Ethiopian-born grocer in 1970s Washington, D.C., has become a classic, and it deserves every accolade. Haunting, heartbreaking, and beautifully written, Mengestu’s novel is a testament to what remains, even when we think we have left our past behind.
A flight attendant from Canada is stranded in Addis Ababa, her native city, in a novel that becomes an insightful meditation on grief and secrets, and how those two things can bind a family and tear it apart at the same time. Daughters of Silence is an exploration of things that must be spoken and called forth, despite the potential cost.
Maaza Mengiste recommends 6 books by writers from her native Ethiopia The Week Staff
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The Wife s Tale is an impassioned and elegant biography of the author s grandmother, who was born in the 1920s and lived to be nearly 100. It is an intimate glimpse into how one remarkable woman experienced some of the most significant moments in Ethiopia s modern history.
Mengestu s story of an Ethiopian-born grocer in 1970s Washington, D.C., has become a classic, and it deserves every accolade. Haunting, heartbreaking, and beautifully written, Mengestu s novel is a testament to what remains, even when we think we have left our past behind.