Dinaw Mengestu

Dinaw Mengestu is a journalist and award-winning author of three novels. His 2007 debut, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, won rave reviews for its exploration of the lives and perspectives of immigrants, from Mengestu’s birthplace of Ethiopia, as well as other African countries. Mengestu has published in magazines including Harper’s and Granta, traveling to observe and write about the conflicts in Africa firsthand. In 2011, he won the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature and he was named a MacArthur Fellow, in 2012. His latest novel, All Our Names, was released in 2014. Updated 2014