Dinaw Mengestu's reading at the Seattle Public Library last night was excellent. I did feel a little bad for him as the lecture hall was only half full but it was raining pretty steadily yesterday evening. I figured that the hall would be packed as it was part of the free lecture series and Mengestu's first two books are so good. Sure he might not be a living room name but I was sure that people would be lined up to see him.

I rounded up my sister and our friend B. to go with me. The lecture started at 7pm and I met them for drinks about 5:30 at Purple Cafe and Wine Bar at 4th and University. It's a big space but when I got there at 5:25 or so all of the tables were taken or reserved. So I ended up at the upstairs bar. This turned out to be just perfect because I was able to chat with the bartender about wine and sample some wines I've never had before from Spain, Portugal and Italy. It was an especially happy hour for me!

The reading was co-hosted by the library and by a local bookstore so I had an opportunity to buy Mengestu's new book, <a title="Goodreads and All Our Names" href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18050096-all-our-names" target="_blank">All Our Names</a>, beforehand. I'd read a little bit about the new book before the lecture but I hadn't read the book. It seems like <a title="NYT on All Our Names" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/books/review/all-our-names-by-dinaw-mengestu.html?_r=0" target="_blank">this NYT review </a>gets right to the heart of the matter: cultural exchange and the pieces of ourselves that we trade in or bargin away to make this happen and the violence of this loss (or of this exchange) whether physical or internalized.

I did not take notes at the reading so what I am writing about now is from memory. There were three things that stood out to me during the reading and Q&amp;A. First, is Mengestu's resistance to being called or a labeled an immigrant writer. Second, is the complicated role of language in the excerpt that he read from. Third, is the issue of privilage and being an expat versus an immigrant.

In my post yesterday, I said that I'd found myself <a title="Reading list: books on the immigrant experience" href="http://carolynemigh.com/seattle-public-libary-dinaw-mengestu-books-on-the-immigrant-experience/" target="_blank">devouring books on the immigrant experience</a> and I counted Mengestu's works among these books. Would I have called him an immigrant author yesterday? Maybe, maybe not. His biography makes it pretty clear that his is a life lived in America--he grew up here and his writing is full of cultural and linguistic markers that mark him as American.

But at the reading, Mengestu pushed against the label: immigrant writer. He resisted this saying that we are all immigrant writers, well, aside from Sherman Alexie.