I can’t say I was completely bowled over by Dinaw Mengistu’s first novel, “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears,” about an Ethiopian immigrant in gentrifying Washington D.C. (Some of my friends loved it though and most literary elites here raved about it: The New York Times Book Review, for example, deemed it one of “the notable books of 2007” and earlier this year The New Yorker included him, along with Nigerian Chimamanda Adichie, in its “20 under 40” list of outstanding young fiction writers.) Mengistu has a new novel, “How to Read the Air.” I haven’t seen or read it yet, so no judgment from me yet. The New York Times recently did a profile of Mengistu. Predictably they have to include a reference to his “exotic” name. There’s also this bit about his identity as a child of immigrants to the US:

In eastern Congo [doing research for “How to Read the Air”] he ran into problems trying to interview Hutu rebels from Rwanda, who … didn’t know what to make of him. “I could speak English as well as I wanted to them, but they could only see that my features are what they consider Tutsi, and that was definitely threatening to my life,” he said rather matter-of-factly. “They would look at me, and my translator would say, ‘No, he’s American.’ He was always very specific, telling me, ‘Don’t confuse them, don’t try to say you’re Ethiopian, just tell them you’re American, don’t complicate things with this extra layer, because nobody’s going to believe it.’ ”

The full profile here.

Further Reading

Energy for whom?

Behind the fanfare of the Africa Climate Summit, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline shows how neocolonial extraction still drives Africa’s energy future.

The sound of revolt

On his third album, Afro-Portuguese artist Scúru Fitchádu fuses ancestral wisdom with urban revolt, turning memory and militancy into a soundtrack for resistance.

O som da revolta

No seu terceiro álbum, o artista afro-português Scúru Fitchádu funde a sabedoria ancestral com a revolta urbana, transformando memória e militância em uma trilha sonora para a resistência.

Biya forever

As Cameroon nears its presidential elections, a disintegrated opposition paves the way for the world’s oldest leader to claim a fresh mandate.

From Cornell to conscience

Hounded out of the United States for his pro-Palestine activism, Momodou Taal insists that the struggle is global, drawing strength from Malcolm X, faith, and solidarity across borders.

After the uprising

Following two years of mass protest, Kenya stands at a crossroads. A new generation of organizers is confronting an old question: how do you turn revolt into lasting change? Sungu Oyoo joins the AIAC podcast to discuss the vision of Kenya’s radical left.

Redrawing liberation

From Gaza to Africa, colonial cartography has turned land into property and people into populations to be managed. True liberation means dismantling this order, not redrawing its lines.

Who deserves the city?

Colonial urbanism cast African neighborhoods as chaotic, unplanned, and undesirable. In postcolonial Dar es Salaam, that legacy still shapes who builds, who belongs, and what the middle class fears the city becoming.