Once I began college, I was committed to writing, which I think is different from saying I wanted to become a writer.… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
I'm an immigrant writer, or an African writer, or an Ethiopian-American writer, and occasionally an American writer according to the whims and… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
As for most writers, language is vital for me: a writer's ability to render a fictional world - characters, landscape, emotions -… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
As an undergraduate, I took a theology course titled Religion as Writing. If writing can be considered a form of faith, then… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
Most of my favorite writers are over forty, and so I suppose I'll only name a few of the writers whose work… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
I tend to write longer narrative pieces after I've finished writing a novel - when the fiction's finished and put away, and… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
Writers, especially those of us with roots in other countries, are rarely left to ourselves. We are asked to declare our allegiances,… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
As a writer, it's a great narrative tool to have that character who is slightly detached but at the same time observant… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
Don't think about how your characters sound, but how they see. Watch the world through their eyes - study the extraordinary and… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
Personally, its a comfort and happiness to know that my work is taken seriously and is not marginalised and put in a… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share Image
You see, at the beginning we weren't fighters. We weren't yellers or throwers, even if we eventually came to be. It would take time… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
I told my parents I was going to be a doctor and then a lawyer, but I never believed it and never tried. — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
“You will never disappear," I said. "Even if it may feel like you have at some point. We're going to remain a part of… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
The fact that I have always been deeply invested in politics, and African politics in particular, inevitably played a role in my first novel… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
Writers, especially those of us with roots in other countries, are rarely left to ourselves. We are asked to declare our allegiances, or they… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
Personally, its a comfort and happiness to know that my work is taken seriously and is not marginalised and put in a box of… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
“If the last thing a man has to hold on to is his sense of pride and accompanying dignity, then more likely than not… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
“Have you seen a hungry man with a gun? Of course not. Such things don't exist. It's like saying, have you ever seen a… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
There are those who wake up each morning to conquer the day, and then there are those of us who wake up only because… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
“She always thought Americans were too territorial. 'All those fences and flags,' she had once said, seeing very little difference between the two.” — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
Ethnic divisions can definitely be exacerbated by a lack of natural resources, but those tensions become violent when people manipulate them for their own… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
“I remember another aphorism of my father's, one that he used to say whenever we passed someone pissing openly in the street: add color… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
“Through them, the story becomes an argument for a better way of seeing, which has always struck me as being one of the novel’s… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
Obviously, in marketing, the best tool is to show the autobiography in fiction. It's inevitable how that happens, but it's generic. Say I've written… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
I had lost too much of the heart and all the faith needed to stay afloat in a job where every human encounter felt… — Dinaw Mengestu Copy Share
