Episode
Season 4 Ep 3 | Dinaw Mengestu | Art, Immigration, Masculinity, and the Power of Storytelling
- Published
- Aug 5, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 2853
- Processing state
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- https://murphlaw.substack.com/p/season-4-ep-3-dinaw-mengestu-art
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Summary
Today’s guest is the acclaimed Ethiopian American novelist and writer Dinaw Mengestu, whose award-winning work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine , The Wall Street Journal , and many other outlets. He currently directs the Written Arts program at Bard College and has been recognized as a MacArthur Fellow among numerous other honors. I first encountered Dinaw at a recent event hosted by George Mason’s Cheuse Center—shout out to my alma mater!—where his insights lingered long after the talk. His artistry is compelling, but I was especially drawn to his reflections on two urgent themes: masculinity and immigration, and their intersection with art and politics in 2025. We began by grappling with a pressing question: What use is art, especially novels, in an increasingly authoritarian climate? For me, the answer is clear—art becomes more vital than ever as a means to challenge, to bear witness, and to connect. Dinaw’s work offers a nuanced exploration of human relationships and identity that transcends national boundaries. Where American novels often fixate on the nation, his stories probe the fragile balances that shape all our lives. In particular, we talked about how immigration narratives are not just political flashpoints but deeply human stories filled with complexity, survival, and sometimes silence. His novel Someone Like Us exemplifies this approach, revealing how immigrant lives are collections of stories—some fabricated for survival, some never told—that demand empathy and deeper understanding. We also tackled masculinity, a loaded and often misunderstood topic. Dinaw shared his views on male anger and violence as social constructs, shaped by cultural narratives that influence how identity and behavior are formed—and how those narratives show up in both fiction an…