
How to Read the Air
Dinaw Mengestu
A powerful and moving summer read that explores love, grief and the reality of the contemporary American immigrant experience
Jonas, fresh from a failed marriage, is desperate to make sense of the ties that have forged him. How can he dream of a future when he can't make sense of his past? He hits the road, tracing the route that his parents - young Ethiopians in search of an identity as an American couple - took thirty years earlier to Nashville, Tennessee.
In a stunning display of imagination he weaves together a history that takes him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents' youth to a brighter vision of his own life in contemporary America, a story - real or invented- that holds the possibility of reconciliation and redemption.
‘A story of exile and redemption, beautifully written’ The Times
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About Dinaw Mengestu
Reviews for How to Read the Air
James Lasdun
Guardian
A story of exile and redemption, beautifully written
Kate Saunders
The Times
[Mengestu has] pulled off a narrative sleight of hand, weaving two - or is it three? - beautiful fictions, while reminding us subtly that the most seductive may be the least true
Los Angeles Times
How To Read the Air is deeply thought out, deliberate in its craftsmanship and in many parts beautifully written...remarkably talented
Miguel Syjuco
The Scotsman
Challenging
Peter Carty
Independent