Dinaw Mengestu is an Ethiopian American novelist and writer born in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. He left his family during the Ethiopian Civil War when he was two year old and immigrated to the United States. He was raised In Peoria,Illinois and went and graduated from Fenwick High school in Oak-park,IL. Later on graduated from Georgetown University. Mengestu wrote his first book in 2007 called The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. Mengestu's second novel was published in October 2010 and was called How to Read the Air. An excerpt of the novel was in an issue of The New Yorker, after Mengestu was selected as one of their "20 under 40" writers of 2010. How to Read the Air was also the winner of the 2011 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.
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He owns with two other friends, Joseph (from Congo) and Kenneth(from Kenya) a small, little grocery store in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Together they form a little family of foreign immigrants who gather together in the store weekly to tell stories about home, the countries that they lost, the families that they miss. A quote that I really like from the story told from the narrator's point of view is “Kenneth looks Kenyan. His skin is dark, his nose is long and thin, and his features are soft, almost delicate, like a child's. He's six feet tall, but it's only in the past two years, since he got his job, that's he's ever weighed more than hundred and fifty pounds... “ God bless America”... “ Only here can someone become the Buddha”(Mengestu pg3) This shows how in Ethiopia food might have been a problem for many people who lived there but, when they moved to America eat was not problem to them anymore. According to this other quote in the story “.I make just over four hundred dollars. I walk home at the end of the night feeling better, not only about my store, but about this country. I think to myself, America is beautiful after all. There is more here. Gas is cheap. This is not a bad place. Things could be worst. And what else could i have done?”(Mengestu pg 5) this quote shows how they believe America really equals freedom …show more content…
Colonialism is dead, but the era of the dictators is looming, and like so many young Africans at that time, Isaac is intoxicated by the possibilities of new beginnings and self-invention. the story begins when Isaac(one the main characters) leaves his home in Ethiopia to attend college in Uganda(early 1970s). Isaac is drawn from the safe margins of the university campus into the roaring of the streets outside. He finds a friend seeking the same ideologies and change coming from the university. But the line between idealism and violence increase and the friends started to part. I believed this quote really shows how the war really intruded into the normal lives of citizens in Ethiopia and interrupted and separated kids from the their parents and families. According to the text “ Single long bloody afternoon, and boys like Isaac were orphaned a second time... Isaac and I became friends the way two stray dogs find themselves linked by trading the same path everyday in the search of food and companionship” (pg6) This shows how war separated families and left many kids \ parentless and homeless where they were sent to foster cares.This was the government's way of peace
He owns with two other friends, Joseph (from Congo) and Kenneth(from Kenya) a small, little grocery store in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Together they form a little family of foreign immigrants who gather together in the store weekly to tell stories about home, the countries that they lost, the families that they miss. A quote that I really like from the story told from the narrator's point of view is “Kenneth looks Kenyan. His skin is dark, his nose is long and thin, and his features are soft, almost delicate, like a child's. He's six feet tall, but it's only in the past two years, since he got his job, that's he's ever weighed more than hundred and fifty pounds... “ God bless America”... “ Only here can someone become the Buddha”(Mengestu pg3) This shows how in Ethiopia food might have been a problem for many people who lived there but, when they moved to America eat was not problem to them anymore. According to this other quote in the story “.I make just over four hundred dollars. I walk home at the end of the night feeling better, not only about my store, but about this country. I think to myself, America is beautiful after all. There is more here. Gas is cheap. This is not a bad place. Things could be worst. And what else could i have done?”(Mengestu pg 5) this quote shows how they believe America really equals freedom …show more content…
Colonialism is dead, but the era of the dictators is looming, and like so many young Africans at that time, Isaac is intoxicated by the possibilities of new beginnings and self-invention. the story begins when Isaac(one the main characters) leaves his home in Ethiopia to attend college in Uganda(early 1970s). Isaac is drawn from the safe margins of the university campus into the roaring of the streets outside. He finds a friend seeking the same ideologies and change coming from the university. But the line between idealism and violence increase and the friends started to part. I believed this quote really shows how the war really intruded into the normal lives of citizens in Ethiopia and interrupted and separated kids from the their parents and families. According to the text “ Single long bloody afternoon, and boys like Isaac were orphaned a second time... Isaac and I became friends the way two stray dogs find themselves linked by trading the same path everyday in the search of food and companionship” (pg6) This shows how war separated families and left many kids \ parentless and homeless where they were sent to foster cares.This was the government's way of peace