Ethiopian Reporter - Amharic Version

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20| “How to Read the Air” explores the idea of universal truths in fiction. Do you think they exist? I think fiction has its own truth. There is a lot of mistrust in fiction, and the imagination in general, so with this novel I definitely wanted to make an argument that there is great beauty in lies, imagination and creating stories that might not actually be real, but are as emotionally powerful and compelling as any story is. Did you use stories that your own father told you as a child, about his path of immigration to the United States, as the basis for some of the stories in the novel? Part of the father’s journey in the book is based on the journey my parents took to America—my father left Ethiopia before the rest of the family did. He got asylum when he was in Italy, and I remember him telling me about living in a strange country— not being able to speak the language, and the loneliness and isolation of being in a refugee camp. Fortunately the story of my father is not as tragic as the story of Jonas’s father. But I guess it was at the back of my mind when writing this novel. There are tons of stories coming out now about migrants being trapped on small ships, coming out of places like Yemen or Northern Africa, who end up washed up in Europe—half dead and starved. These stories were in my head when I was writing the novel, I guess. In your novel you juxtapose the past and the present www.ethiopianreporter.com The Reporter | Saturday |April 30, 2011 dinaw Mengestu, novelist With “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears” (or “Children of the Revolution”, depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on), Dinaw Mengestu earned his reputation as an impressive young novelist on the rise. His 2007 debut illustrated a facility with grand subjects, such as displacement and identity. It was a textured story about the immigrants’ struggle in America, rendered in beautiful prose and from the perspective of an African shop-owner in Washington, DC. His latest novel, “How to Read the Air”, not only confirms his nascent place in the world of letters, but delivers an even more profound story, this time about two generations of Ethiopian immigrants in America—the parents who fled their homeland in search of a life in Nashville, Tennessee, and their son who retraces their steps years later. The story is the son’s, Jonas, now an English teacher in a fraught marriage in New York, who eagerly mines these stories about the past for truths about himself. Mr Mengestu has earned quite a bit of attention for both books. In 2010 he was also named one of the New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” fiction writers to watch. Here he speaks to More Intelligent Life about trying to define the American novel, the loneliness of immigrants and the beauty of myth-making. ...it unleashes how different preconceived perceptions by the characters were proven wrong as Lydia and Belge develop a strong friendship and Shewangizaw learns to overcome his prejudices of the urban people as lazy and crooked tough... ConT`d from page 14 The film starts with a kind of an ethnological excursion into the heart of rustic life. Robel and Lydia are taken to a market; they learn to do some routine tasks like gathering firewood, baking injera, ploughing, etc. In the film they are seen regularly complaining that they are extremely tired and explaining that what looks easy to see, appears to be gravely hard when you do it yourself. Each of the tasks, which the two found daunting, are nothing but daily routines for the farmers. “Guzo” shows the contrasting life swap of a glamorous urban girl into a quite countryside housewife, and a privileged lad from the city into a hard-working farmer. But as the film progresses, it unleashes how different preconceived perceptions by the characters were proven wrong as Lydia and Belge develop a strong friendship and Shewangizaw learns to overcome his prejudices of the urban people as lazy and crooked. Meanwhile, Robel discovers in himself a strength and ability to overcome difficulties. What began as an infotainment film highlighting some aspects of rural life in Ethiopia ends like an emotional drama. One cannot do full justice to the film without mentioning the excellent job done by the cameramen. The countryside, its trees and hills, its houses and markets, its beautiful sky look so picturesque on screen that one can hardly believe they are not decoration sets. “Guzo” is indeed indulged in with an astonishing scenery and exceptional true story. The next morning was one of the most exciting mornings in my life. As soon as the boat departed, I’ve forgotten everything in the world. There were pelicans - dozens of pelicans lazily floating, and flying around, and having a good time. Then there were flamingos, and cranes, and lots of birds that I don’t even know by name. Then there were tankwas (papyrus boats looking exactly like the ones I saw on pictures of books about ancient Egypt when I was a little boy). Then there were coffee trees, and mango trees, and fig trees, and fields of chat. It may sound trivial to someone who lives in Africa. But not long ago I could only dream of seeing all this, just like someone in Africa might dream of seeing a snow. And, of course, there were the monasteries - Kebran Gabriel, and the Zege Peninsula, and Debre Maryam. Their porticos and paintings, as well as crowns, crosses and books kept there left me speechless. At some point, the boat driver showed me something across the water and said: ‘The source of the Blue Nile.’ Again, I was astonished. Here was the source of one of as a tool for exploring the characters in this novel. Why did you choose this method of storytelling? Because history does influence our lives—every moment. We never sort of live our lives in a linear fashion. We always have these memories and these images from our past that sometimes we’re not even aware of, and they sort of shape who we are. I’m obviously not the first novelist that has hit upon the idea that family history, cultural history, is inevitable in shaping who we are. As much as possible I wanted the novel to reflect that feeling that the past and present are constantly in conversation with each other. Your debut novel had two different titles. What was the reason for this? The first title was “Children of the Revolution” [the name of the book in Britain], and the publishers decided to change the title to “The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears”. I think in America they thought the first title would sound too political. Americans might not have caught the irony or the music reference. I think the publishers thought that people would come to the readings thinking this was a political novel about communism. Does it annoy you that your work gets tagged as the ‘immigrant novel?’ I understand that there are different ways about talking about literature. That the book is about immigration is not a bad thing to me. But to say On the... ConT`d from page 21 ConT`d on page 23 the greatest rivers, the one I’ve read about so much, the one that were looked for by so many ferenji travelers. I had to soak it up and think about it for a while. But suddenly I discovered that the boat was approaching Bahr Dar. I looked at my watch and realized that my trip on Lake Tana lasted for over four hours. And I was hungry. It wasn’t before I stepped on the shore and said goodbye to the boat driver that I stopped and cried out: ‘Hey, and what about the hippos?’ ‘Haven’t you seen them?’ a guy on the shore asked. ‘No! I kinda came here to see a hippo!’ I replied desperately. ‘But have you seen the monasteries?’ ‘Oh yes. And it was all so wonderful: the monasteries, and the birds, and the trees, and the tankwas… But the hippos!’ ‘You can’t always get what you want,’ the guy said. ‘Think of it as a reason to come back.’
The Reporter | Saturday |April 30, 2011 |21 On the trails of a phantom hippo By arTem efimov Above: Tankwas (papyrus boats looking exactly like the ones I saw on pictures of books about ancient Egypt when I was a little boy) Lake Tana shore line the source of the Blue Nile I have never seen a hippo. Well, I have seen them on TV, of course, but never in the flesh. Not even in a zoo. So I came to Africa. I did realize that it’s actually quite a big continent, but I thought there was no big difference on where exactly to go when it comes to seeing a hippo, with a possible exception of the Sahara. In Ethiopia, it turned out that you cannot just meet a hippo while jogging in the morning. OK, I did realize it beforehand, too. But I was kind of hoping that as soon as I’m in Africa the hippos would be within reach without many difficulties. ‘Go to Lake Tana,’ they told me. ‘If you’re lucky, you’ll see some there.’ So I went to Bahr Dar. Russia is the biggest country in the world, so if somebody calls any journey within any country ‘painfully long’, we, the Russians, usually just laugh. I booked a bus ticket to Bahir Dar, laughing. I appeared on a departure point early in the morning, grinning. I kept smiling for some half an hour. ‘Long journey, hah,’ I thought. ‘I’ve done the Transsiberian trip; it’s over 9000 km, a whole week in a train! No journey is long enough to me after that! And there’re hippos in the end!’ But then the bus left Addis, and the honking began. I wonder why drivers in Ethiopia honk so much. They honk at each other. They honk at pedestrians. They honk at animals. They honk at towns, villages, forests, road curves. www.ethiopianreporter.com They honk uphill and downhill. They honk with or without any worldly reason. Maybe they just like the sound? As for me, I’ve been driven mad with it after half an hour. Thankfully, the road wasn’t too bad, so we’ve honked all the way to Bahr Dar in just seven hours. I stepped out of the bus wondering which part of me was aching more - my head or my back. But there were hippos somewhere around! I rushed to Lake Tana. There was no shortage of people on the shore who were ready, for a decent payment, to take me to the source of the Blue Nile where I could hopefully see the beast I’ve been yearning to see for the past years. But they also spoke about the monasteries of Lake Tana with such an excitement that I couldn’t resist including some of them in a tour. I’ve managed to find a hotel that wasn’t too expensive and didn’t have too many mosquitoes. I spent rest of the day riding around on a rental bicycle. There were children who chased me screaming: ‘Ferenji! Ferenji!’ I stopped to have a break, and immediately they were right beside me. ‘Where are you from?’ they asked. ‘From Addis,’ I replied. They didn’t seem to believe me. ‘Really, I live there!’ I said. They smiled skeptically. ConT`d on page 20
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Ethiopian Reporter - Amharic Version

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