The MFA program did one great thing for me: It taught me how to be a better reader and critic. Nothing I wrote during my time at Columbia remains - but learning how to really deconstruct a work of fiction… — 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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 hungry lion? Of course not, because as soon as you did he wouldn't be hungry anymore. The men here with guns are the same. They can shoot, arrest, kill anyone they want. They've done it many… — 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 we have to. We live in the shadow of every neighborhood. We own little corner stores, live in run-down apartments that get too little light, and walk the same streets day after day. We spend our… — 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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
