>> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
[ Silence ]
>> Mary-Jane Deeb: Okay, good afternoon and welcome all
to the African-Middle East division, I'm Mary-Jane Deeb,
chief of the division and today I'm delighted to be able
to welcome Maaza Mengiste, the writer whom you will be hearing
about from Rob Casper in a minute.
But today the African section in cooperation with the Poetry
and Literature Center here at the library, which is headed
by Rob Casper, and the Africa Society for the National Summit
on Africa with president and CEO Bernadette Paolo will address you
in the moment, will be presenting the 10th interview in the series,
"Conversations with African Poets and Writers."
This videotape series is meant to record [inaudible] the words
and images of important African authors.
In addition to their works which the Library of Congress holds, teachers,
scholars, students and others interested
in African culture will have a unique opportunity
to view these authors speaking and reading from their [inaudible] works
and speaking to interviewers.
The point of the series is not only to have them here and to share them
with you, but also to provide a tool, an educational tool
for people doing research on Africa and on literature in Africa
for students who want to learn more about the writings
of the established, older writers
and also the new ones, the young voices.
The people who are coming with new ideas who are speaking
about the new Africa and certainly the works of the writers
that we present to you have received awards, have been recognized
in their field and as certainly as has Maaza Mengiste's new book.
[Speaking in a foreign language], the area specialist for Ethiopian
and [inaudible]
in the African-Middle East division will introduce today's exciting
new writer.
He will introduce her and talk to her; Robert Casper is going
to do the introduction but he will be the one who is going
to interview her and [speaking in a foreign language] is really a pillar
of Ethiopian studies here at the library.
It is through him that we have acquired this wonderful collection
that we have today and it is he who brings so many patrons here
for events that have arranged from having the grandson [laughter]
of [speaking in a foreign language] come here to having programs
on various aspects of Ethiopian society.
So before we begin the program, we'll have Bernadette Paolo,
the dynamic CEO of the Africa Society and our partner
in this initiative who will say a few words.
Bernadette?   >> Bernadette Paolo: Thank you.
[Silence and applause] Thank you, thank you very much.
Good evening ladies and gentleman,
distinguished guests, all, thank you.
Dr. Mary-Jane Deeb and Dr. Robert Casper and Dr. Angel Batiste,
[inaudible] Ferguson and our distinguished Ethiopian scholar.
The Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa is so pleased
to partner with the African section of the African
and Middle East division and the Poetry and Literature Center
of the Library of Congress.
You know, as this program continues, we're in our third season.
I'm struck by not only what we've accomplished so far
but the potential impact this series can have in educating Americans
and people throughout the world about poets and writers living
on the continent as well as highlighting the contributions
of writers and poets in the African diaspora and this really fits
in our mission, the mission of the Africa Society,
which is to educate Americans primarily together with our partners
about the countries, cultures, economies
and contributions emanating from the continent of Africa.
We tell a markedly different story from those conveyed in the media
and we're proud to actually have staff members, young staff members
from Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia beginning
with Patricia Baine our program director and Sarah Caruso [phonetic]
and Leila Samara and Kojo [phonetic] Hazel.
Ms. Samara whose from Ethiopia has told everyone on Facebook about you,
Maaza Mengiste [laughter], I mean she's taken such privilege,
you would think that you're her sister and so I have
to acknowledge that, but on a more serious note,
you know Maaza's work is impacted by her life's experiences
which is why she writes in such a profound manner.
It's refreshing to see someone who can turn what is tragic
into literary masterpieces that she was named New Literary Idol
by New York Magazine is a tribute to her and it's an inspiration
to potential authors who are encountering similar situations
in places around the world who can use their talent and energy
and the past no matter how turbulent,
as a positive gateway to the future.
We appreciate the participation of those of you
who are attending this program at the library today
and we also welcome you, those of you who have the opportunity
to view this program online in the future.
Together we are growing, we are experiencing new talent
and traveling to different places through the eyes and experiences
of our distinguished guest.
Thank you very much and now I have the pleasure of introducing
to you Rob Casper, Dr. Rob Casper who heads the Poetry
and Literature Division of the Library of Congress.
>> Rob Casper: Thank you Bernadette and thank you to Mary-Jane Deeb
for organizing this reading and series.
I'm thrilled to work with the National Summit on Africa
and the African and Middle Eastern division of the Library of Congress
and celebrate African writers and poets.
I'm really excited that this is our 10th event and excited
for what we can bring going forward to American audiences,
writers both as Bernadette said, writers both from the continent
and diasporic writers as well.
Before I introduce Maaza, our reader today,
I wanted to tell you a little bit about the center.
We are the home to the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry
and we run some 30-40 programs like this one every year.
To find out more about this series and other events like this
at the Library of Congress,
you can visit our website, www.loc.gov/poetry.
You can also find out about the library's African
and Middle Eastern division at www.loc.gov/rr/amed/.
Finally if you want to watch some of the videos that have been produced
as part of this series, you can go to the library's home page
at www.loc.gov and click on webcasts.
I should say that if you have cellphones,
I please ask that you turn them off and also
that there will be a question and answer period at the end
of this event and if you participate in that question and answer period,
you will give us permission to be able to use you on the webcast.
Bernadette did a great job of introducing Maaza Mengiste
but let me say a little bit about her as well.
First I want to say that she is a terrific writer
but she's also a wonderful, wonderful person
and I'm personally thrilled to have her here today.
She was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and lived in Nigeria
and Kenya before settling in the United States.
Her debut novel, "Beneath the Lion's Gaze" which is for sale right
in the back there, was published by WW Norton and Company in 2010.
It received great accolades.
The Christian Science Monitor called the novel, "Intelligent and moving,"
and added, "Beneath the Lion's Gaze provides a window
into a complex and ancient country."
While the New Yorker described it as a "tender novel" and said,
"Mengiste's social intelligence and historical research allow her
to write compassionately about emotions denatured
by a brutal regime or calcified by conviction."
The novel was featured on a number of top lists for the year
and was also selected by the Guardian as one
of the ten best contemporary African books.
Maaza's work has also appeared in the New York Times, BBC-Radio 4,
[inaudible] and Letra [phonetic] International among other places.
She is a Fulbright Scholar who has received fellowships
from the Emily Harvey Foundation, the Virginia Center
for the Creative Arts, the Prague Summer Program and YADA.
A graduate of the creative writing program at New York University,
Maaza currently lives in New York City.
Please join me in welcoming Maaza Mengiste [applause].
>> Maaza Mengiste: Thank you.   It is really a pleasure to be here
and I've had the opportunity while getting lost outside and trying
to find the library of bumping into [inaudible] who kindly directed me
and I see some faces that I saw outside so thank you to Rob
and everyone at the Library of Congress for inviting me.
It really is a pleasure to be here and an honor.
I wanted to tell you a little bit about my book before the Q and A
and give you some context to the sections that I will be reading.
My book is set during the early days of revolution
in Ethiopia that began in 1974.
My novel goes through the first three years of that
and includes probably the bloodiest era, the bloodiest years
in that period called "The Red Terror"
and my main characters are a family headed by a doctor who works at one
of the bigger hospitals in Addis Ababa
and through them I was interested in examining
and investigating what happens to people who love each other
in conflict but suddenly realize that they have very different
and opposing views of what should happen in their country.
I think the family unit for me was very important
because I'm interested in what happens when you are related
to somebody and when you love someone
but you don't like their etiology.
And so Hailu's family, my doctor in this,
was really a perfect vehicle for me to do this.
Within Hailu's family, he has two sons,
Yonas who is a university professor whose very pragmatic,
feels responsible for his wife and daughter and only wants
to survive this revolution.
He wants to stay under the violence; he wants to stay away
from it as much as possible.
Dawit who is the younger brother in here is the one on the front lines.
He's the one protesting.   He is in an underground group trying
to overthrow what would become a military dictatorship and so
with those three characters, I wanted to explore how each
of them reacted, not only to the possibility of change
but what happens when that idea of change goes very wrong
and a new regime takes place
and a very violent period begins in Ethiopia.
But also in my book, which I think I will talk a little bit about later
and perhaps in Q and A, I have another character named Mickey
and Mickey was Dawit's best friend growing up
but Mickey was much poorer than Dawit was
and Mickey somehow finds himself involved in the military
and slowly begins to rise in the regime and you see
through this friendship with Mickey and Dawit the way
that politics can destroy a friendship but also begin
to destroy what they thought they knew
about each other and about themselves.
The part that I will read now, I think one of the things
that I questioned as I was writing this book
and researching, was how was it possible?
How did it start?   How could it begin?
And this revolution was called the creeping revolution.
It just seemed to happen slowly, gradually in steps
and at first the [inaudible],
the military regime initially promised a bloodless revolution;
it was a broken promise, but this is what they said.
And I wondered in those early days what were people thinking?
What were people imagining?
And in particular, because I have one of my characters,
a kind of a side character is Haile Selassie, the emperor.
I wondered what he thought as step by step,
these military officers are getting closer and closer into the palace
and then into the palace and then into his office
and slowly moving him further and further into jail,
into prison, until they kill him.
And so I want to read just a very quick section
of just my own imaginings
of what Haile Selassie might have been thinking in those early days.
"The emperor wasn't sure how these soldiers had crept
into his meetings.   Somehow they'd managed to crawl
out of their barracks and into Menelik Palace.
Their distaste for educated and cultured men clear
in their [inaudible] glares.
They had been meeting at the fourth division headquarters when one day,
a few of their select had driven in their jeeps onto his grounds,
pushed past his startled guards and settled themselves around his table.
He'd become confused by how many they were.
These men in dark green fatigues who now cradled his elbow
in palace meetings and whispered that he must remember their demands.
He must remember his people.   He no longer knew their numbers.
Didn't know which of these earnest soldiers had taken control
of his radio station and breathed words into every home
and restaurant in his city.
They had said, "We do not believe in an eye for an eye,
we will bring to trial all those who misuse their power.
There can be justice without bloodshed."
And was it only the wind or had his people sent joyous shouts
into the night sky.
In the whirl and speed of so much happening so fast,
the bodies of these men had disintegrated
into mere voices in his ear.
This seemed molded out of the shadows that clung to dark corners
of his palace drifting in and out of his line of vision leaving traces
of smoke and the scent of burning wood in their wake.
They talked to him in his sleep.
Their words nestling against his head and burrowing into his brain.
The emperor slid through his days shaking the noises loose
from his ears, trying to bat the prodding requests away.
"Let us help you lead the country.   You are old and we are young.
You are one, we are many.   We will do everything you ask."
The pressure built in Emperor Haile Selassie's head drilling behind
his eyes.
Thoughts collapsed into a 100 scattered words floating in front
of his face, pinned onto pages that were shoved under his pen.
He found himself numbed by the smiles
that sliced his resistance more than their hard, sharp eyes.
"Your name here."
And here these officers he'd never know before said, "Sign this
and dissolve your ministry and the Crown Counsel.
We have a new and better way for you to rule."
They were men, simply men instructing God's chosen.
The monarch with blood that could be traced
to wise King Solomon of the bible.
Soon the voices floated from the radio and called his best men
to submit to the wishes of all and go to jail.
"There will be no bloodshed," the radio said again, "Only justice."
His senators and judges, cabinet members and ministers,
his noble men, began to leave their posts and walk
with grim confidence to turn themselves in.
"Sign here and here.   No time to read.
We must hurry.   Trust us. Don't sit.
There is no rest.   We must show that change is coming.
Don't you hear your people?"   The emperor stood.
The emperor walked.
The emperor followed the backs of the uniformed men
from one meeting into another.   "What has become of us?"
he asked himself.
"When will angels lead us out of his [inaudible]?"
Emperor Haile Selassie tried his best to become immobile,
to stand rigid without following, to sit without signing,
to watch without nodding, without expression,
without revealing the panic that flooded through him
but things kept moving forward.
"We must not be anything other than what we are."
He reminded himself.   "We are and so we will be."
We are here in these days of locusts and noise but it has been written
that this shall pass and so it will."
As the revolution is beginning and going and inflicting chaos and havoc
into the lives of many Ethiopians across the country,
my character Hailu, who is the medical doctor, has been introduced
to a new patient in his hospital and it is a special patient who is
under the custody of the military and he has been told
that she is a special prisoner whose been very roughly
and violently interrogated.
He is to heal her so she can go back into custody.
And Hailu, who has been trying to keep his son Dawit desperately
out of the fray of the violence and the protests,
finds himself confronted with the revolution
and with choices that he never expected.
He makes a decision in what to do with this young girl that lands him
in prison and he himself has been subjected
to the same torture that she underwent.
And I will read you just a brief section
"This is fear.
I know this taste of bile and sweat in my mouth.
I have run against Italian bullets
with this taste thickened on my tongue.
I have raised a rifle and a scalpel and my hands
with it's familiar sting and stink.   I am no stranger to this.
This is fear," Hailu said,
"but it didn't ease the tightening in his throat.
It didn't loosen the veins that swelled and throbbed
from the pressure of a heart beating too fast.
There is nothing here that is not the sum of its most minute parts.
There is nothing here that logic and rationale discourse cannot put back
into place, but each breath seem to shove him deeper
into the jail despite the fact that he hadn't moved
from this solid chair in what felt like hours and maybe days.
So Hailu started counting, [Speaking in a foreign language].
He couldn't understand why the colonel would be so interested
in a small, quiet girl who was fragile,
much too fragile to live in these times.
He would tell the colonel that she was brought
to him already near dead.
"How do you expect me to keep a dying body alive?"
he'd ask. "I'm nothing but a simple doctor, a mere man, like you."
He'd remind the colonel.   "We too are only men.
It is God we need to question, to interrogate, to beg for answers."
Hailu lifted his face to taste a fresh breeze.
"The cane is tall in my fields, so tall it blocks my vision,
closes off the sun and curtains me in darkness."
He didn't listen to the heavy door that shut behind him.
He dug himself even deeper into the steadily increasing numbers instead.
He searched his pockets for prayer beads.
He realized he'd forgotten at home.
He took his granddaughter Tizita's hand, "Count with me Tizzy."
"Quit praying" a soldier ordered.
He shoved him out of the small room into a long hallway
and into a wide reception area with fluorescent lights so bright,
not even sunlight could compete.   The air was weightless and chilly.
It burned his noise to inhale.
The jail was cleaner than his hospital lobby.
It held no smells.   There were no noises.
Soldiers were attached to chairs, hunched over documents
that sat atop perfectly arranged desks, rigid as statues.
Not one looked up to take in this latest prisoner.
Flanked by two of their stern-faced comrades, Hailu faltered
for a moment but a hand pushed him forward
and he heard inside the noiselessness
that was making his head ache, tiny, tell-tale signs of life.
The scratch of pen on paper.   The deliberate thump of a stamp.
The opening of a freshly oiled drawer.
The slow hush of a chair pushing across a concrete floor.
"Sit," a voice ordered behind him.
Hailu slumped into the metal chair pushed under him.
The slant of light that pushed into the room from a strip of space
in the curtains was crisp, nearly bleached of all golden color.
It settled on a soldier carefully thumbing through a stack of papers
with a back as straight as a ruler.   Hailu look around him.
Gone was his sugar cane field.   Tizita's hand had evaporated.
The air bore down in all its coldness.
He hugged his suitcase to his chest, begged his body to produce heat
to replace the chill he already felt settling into his bones.
The urge to run overtook him again, but the very order of things,
the symmetry of motion and stillness
in the dark gray office made even the thought
of resistance illogical."   Thank you [applause].
>> Maaza, I want to congratulate you on your success in your first novel.
>> Maaza Mengiste: Thank you.
>> I must tell you that when I was reading this novel,
I was very emotional, page by page, because it reminded me
of the [inaudible] tragic times of the 1970s, the mid 1970s, that me
and my generation had to shoulder.
So it's a pleasure to have you and I also wanted to thank you
that you attempted to piece together all the essential elements
of the revolution in this one novel.   Ever since I knew about the book,
when I found out about you publishing the book, I was intending
to get a hold of you for a long time and now it has come
to reality thanks to Robert Casper and we're glad to have you here.
>> Maaza Mengiste: Thank you.
>> So I have a few questions for you.
The first question is what inspired you to write
such a historical political novel and how did you do the research
on the Ethiopian Revolution?   >> Maaza Mengiste: So I was --
you know, I came to the U.S. when I was very young,
you can tell from my English,
and I had always wondered what brought me here
and what raised my curiosity was the fact
that I would keep my asking my family
and my family would not answer me.
They didn't want to talk about this period.
So I started looking back at the things
that I did remember from the revolution.
I was born just before that, but I was living
in Ethiopia during the very early days of the upheaval
and I had only a child's memory of what happened and for me,
they seemed very much like photographs.
You see an image but I didn't know what was happening before that,
I didn't know what happened afterwards, I just had this picture,
and I didn't know the political context.
But I remember playing outside and you know we would hear gunshots
that would come or sitting inside the house
because we couldn't go outside anymore and seeing,
I would see the light, when bullets are being shot they have this light
that goes into the night, and I could see some of it sometimes.
Soldiers broke into our house and that was when I knew
that I think we were hiding somebody,
even though my parents didn't tell me at that time,
but instead of asking the adults they would come and ask me
and I was three but they didn't think a 3-year-old could lie
but I think that's what makes me a writer [laughter]
and so I remember those things but no one would tell me about them.
And when I came here to the U.S., I wanted to know how I got here.
Why am I here?   Why am I not back home?
And so I was looking for as much information as I could find
on Ethiopia, but you have to remember, for me, I was eight, nine,
ten, eleven at that time and I couldn't find many things for my age
so I started reading children's books about World War II
and I started reading books about revolutions in other countries,
books written by Chinese about the cultural revolution.
Anything I could find that could try to explain
to me what might have happened in Ethiopia
and that interest stayed with me.
That idea that I wasn't just reading or looking about myself
but in stories that I was finding about Libya, about Nicaragua,
about [inaudible], Argentina, I was seeing children who were like me
and I was looking and finding people like my parents
and my aunts and my uncles.
So I kept reading but as I got older, I still have this story
in my head and listening at dinner tables, at parties,
at weddings when I was young, when we all get together.
I started paying attention to the stories that are being told
and not only listening to the stories,
but listening to the silences in those stories.
The moments when a story cuts off and you know there's more
but they skip 5-6 years and they continue the story
or they won't tell you what happened,
in the middle they just stop.
So I was listening to those moments and realizing that,
I think there's something here, I think there's something more
and I wasn't sure that I was the right person to tell this story
because I've grown up here, but there was a moment when I was living
in Los Angeles and I was looking in the Sunday newspaper
and it was the 25th anniversary of the fall of the military junta
in Argentina and the journalist
in that newspaper had done a wonderful report,
but he included not just the historical aspect of the Dirty Wars,
but he included pictures of mothers holding their photographs
of children who had disappeared or who had died
and they showed photographs of classmates from a high school
and there was small numbers on those people who had survived and those
who did not and looking at that I said, you know,
maybe I could tell the human side of the story.
Maybe I could tell about the people that I know,
even if I don't fully know yet the complicated historical reasons,
I know from my family and from my memories,
I know what happened to people.
I know what happened to my own family
and this journalist gave me an inspiration to talk
about the mothers, talk about the sons, talk about the children
because those women in Argentina who were holding up the pictures
of their disappeared were the mothers [inaudible] doing the same
thing were the fathers also.
And that gave me an inspiration to write.
>> Thank you, thank you [inaudible].
In your novel, you have used extensive metaphoric language
and imagery and symbolisms.
One of the symbolics that you used is a lion.
What does the lion signify in your novel and if you would
like to include with your answer, why you divided your novel
into four sections or four books.   >> Maaza Mengiste: Yeah, okay.
The second question is really one
of the best questions I've ever head [laughter].
No one has asked me this before and I really had to think --
I know why I did it but it's the first time I have
to speak my answer...   >> You could start with...
>> Maaza Mengiste: ...but I'll start,
let me start with the easy one, the first one.
So the lion in my book, the imagery, which is also part
of the title here is in reference to Haile Selassie in one way,
the Conquering Lion of Judah is what he was called,
and so "Beneath the Lion's Gaze" I had this image
of the emperor watching everything unfold in his city but also many
of the events in my book take place around Addis Ababa University
and there is a statue in front of the university
and if you look very closely, there's a small lion there.
And someone didn't believe me who lives in Addis Ababa and I had
to drive him by there but it's there but this is where a lot
of unrest was also around the university area
so "Beneath the Lion's Gate" is also the small lion that's there,
but your second question which is fantastic,
is I divided the book into four sections.
And if you notice when you're reading it, Hailu my doctor,
begins or ends each one of those sections.
He's my main character and you see through Hailu at each
of those sections the slow disintegration of a human being
under the pressure of war.
I was really interested in survivors and what remains after conflict
and you see through Hailu how someone survives.
Not fully whole like they were before but still surviving
and so he's for me the marker [inaudible] in those and the step
to both his resistance and also that slow wearing away.
>> My next question focuses
on [inaudible] big influences other writers have on you
and your connection with diaspora African writers and your connection
with writers and poets in Ethiopia and in Africa in general,
if you could discuss that.
>> Maaza Mengiste: The first question with diaspora writings,
I read a lot and I read everything that I can find,
but I think for me I remember being in college and picking up the
"Thirteenth Son" by [speaking in a foreign language] and saying, "Wow!"
This is -- it was just a wonderful book and it was a wonderful,
for me he was writing about Ethiopia, about the modernity
and the struggle of tradition with a modern Ethiopia and I could see
in that story, my own negotiations with being a different kind
of Ethiopian but having family who are very traditional
and that book really spoke to me.
Frantz Fanon, "Wretched of the Earth" was really just --
it opened my world in so many ways and Ama Ata Aidoo who wrote
"Our Sister Killjoy," a writer out of Ghana, she was writing a book
but writing it and breaking structure.
And I was reading this as a writer, it was just really incredible for me
so I keep reading [speaking
in a foreign language] [inaudible] is a new writer out of France.
I'm constantly reading these, but what I'm interested
in when I'm reading these writers from the diaspora,
our ways that they negotiate being somewhere else while also being
from a different place.
And I'm interested in the types of stories that they are telling
in that way and I'm hoping to learn but also hoping
to expand my own perspective.
In terms of writers who are in Ethiopia right now, for me,
I'm constantly looking for books that are written by young,
up and coming writers who live in Ethiopia and in fact,
I'm working on an anthology right now; I'll work on it
when my next book is done.
They won't let me start until then, but I'm actively looking for writers
who are in Ethiopia now and writing [inaudible].
I'd like to be a small kind of bridge to bring their work here,
to get it translated and so that anthology which we'll start I think
in 2014, I'm already looking for writers and I've found really,
really exciting work that's been done in Ethiopia and it's wonderful.
>> There is a brief question here as to your feelings,
how you feel differently or more or less connected
to American writers [inaudible] connect with them.
>> Maaza Mengiste: That's an interesting question
because I think I read based on interest and so I'm looking
for writers that are writing just not from the country their in
but the subject matter that might interest me or as a writer
who is very interested in the technical aspects of writing
and the craft of writing and how to write a novel and how to work
with structure and voice and tone, all those things that I have
to think about when I write, I go to across the globe,
but one of the most influential writers
for me has been an American writer by the name of E.L. Doctorow
and he's written "Ragtime" which I think is one
of the most perfect books written.
"The Book of Daniel" does some great things with story and politics
and again with structure that I have learned from,
perhaps more from reading everything that he's written than some
of my graduate courses [laughter].   >> Thank you very much.
Well, the next question is about the challenges
of African diaspora writers.
If you can start with your own experience
and tell us a little bit more about the others.
>> Maaza Mengiste: I think one of the biggest challenges,
one of the things that I hear when I'm at literary festivals or I'm
at readings and I'm around other writers who are born
in different parts of Africa, we all get asked the question,
"Are you an African writer?
Do you think of yourself as an African writer?"
And I remember the first time I got asked this question,
my book had just come out -- I don't think it was out yet,
I think it was coming up the next week, it was my first interview
with a journalist and we met somewhere in Brooklyn
and he asked me, the first question, are you an African writer?
And I was so -- I was a little naive I think and I was so shocked
by the question because I've never -- I'm just me.
I'm me when I'm writing.
I'm not thinking of, "Is this is an African word?
Is this an American word?"
Is this -- [inaudible] I'm just writing, writing.
And so I didn't think about that and I was shocked, I said,
"What do mean by African?"
And he looked at me and he said, "I don't know [laughter]."
I said I thought you would know, [inaudible] I don't know either.
[Inaudible] and so you know, it's just --
and I think that's the struggle we face and what you will see
with writers who are continually put
under this umbrella of African writer.
We are seeing it now.   You'll see the resistance.
You'll see these writers saying, "I'm not African.
I'm not African.
I'm a writer or I'm American or I'm French."
And their resisting that tag and I think what our goal should be is not
to say who is African or who is not but to begin
to broaden our definition of what is American or what is French
or what is Italian or what is German because that's the way
that the world -- we are invading, we are changing those definitions.
Those definitions should not be changing who we are.
>> Great. My last question is already answered.
>> Maaza Mengiste: [Laughter] Oh.
>> The books that you are going to write,
any major literary work that's forthcoming?
If you could just give us some clue.
We don't want you to discuss the whole book but just...
>> Maaza Mengiste: Okay [laughter].
Okay, so you know about the anthology, but before that,
the project I had been working on now
for about two years has been a new novel that's set in 1935 and it's
about Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia and the war
that came as a result of that.
And I lived in Italy for awhile, looking in the archives
and interviewing the children and the grandchildren
of these Italian soldiers and I have been doing some extensive research
on the Ethiopian side as well.
My goal is to tell this story from both sides of the battle lines
because I'm really interested in the way that --
what I don't quite understand,
and when I don't understand something that's usually a good sign
to write about it.
What I don't understand is those Italians who eventually settled
in Ethiopia and lived there but they were shooting
at the people they made into neighbors and married into
and that's for me a question that makes a book.
How is that -- what happened there?
And so I'm working on that but what's interesting
to me also is the role of women in that war
and I don't think we have explored that enough and I'm very excited
about this so some of my main characters are the women who were
on the front lines with the men [clapping and laughter].
>> Well Maaza, I should inform you
that we have reached [inaudible] of yes...
>> Maaza Mengiste: I know I have
to talk [inaudible] talking at lunch [laughter].
>> [Inaudible] so you're welcome to have a look and thank you so much
for the very enlightening interview that you gave us and I want
to remind all of you that her books are being sold
over there and she can sign it.
And now we [inaudible] go through question
and answer I think [laughter] very enthusiastic student.
>> [Inaudible].
>> [Inaudible] writer.   >> Maaza Mengiste: Thank you.
>> My question is when you get uncertain [inaudible]
and you covered so much on social [inaudible] and all that,
what [inaudible] culture [inaudible] in a situation like that.
What happened, you know because we all [inaudible] love each other
and all that and when you [inaudible].
You know, what did it do for the culture?
[Inaudible].
>> Maaza Mengiste: I think that's an interesting question.
I feel like we're not done yet with what's it done.
The fact that you and I are here in this country, we're still going
through the consequences of that.
What I think may be a very simple answer
that it did do was it tore families apart and it forced secrets
into families where before they were not because there are things
that are still very hard to speak about.
That would for me be the most immediate consequence.
My characters, and especially Dawit in my book,
begins to question religion.
Begins to question why God is doing this.
Why are we praying, why don't we take action?
And I wonder if those questions are also still continuing
to surface in Ethiopia.   [ Silence ]
>> [Inaudible] say thank you very much.
It's been really enlightening.
My question is, you have gone back historically for your first book
and your next upcoming book.
Do you have plans to write your story...
>> Maaza Mengiste: [Laughter].
>> ...as an Ethiopian American living here and how
that has affected you and your [inaudible].
[ Silence ]
>> Maaza Mengiste: I don't know if there's anything new I could say,
which is what stops from --
when I have a question is when I start writing usually and I feel
like my life has gone the way
that so many other immigrants, you know, have gone.
I'm very interested in the history of my family
and maybe I could connect myself to that continuum but I'm not
that interesting to myself [laughter] [inaudible].
I don't have plans yet, that was a good question.
>> Any more [inaudible].   Comments? Questions?
[ Silence ]   >> The other question is --
I'm so excited that you said you were going to [inaudible].
There is a [inaudible] which is really sad, and what they went
through during [inaudible] and even the revolution.
So I need to do that [inaudible] because most
of them are not [inaudible] willing to talk also.
I've tried in small ways, going back and trying to talk
to the mothers [inaudible] and they don't want
to really open up that [inaudible].   So how do you plan to do that?
>> Maaza Mengiste: You know I have been trying to find the stories
by speaking to people by asking but it's been very hard.
It's been very hard.
Unfortunately, especially during the era that I'm researching now, 1935,
so many of those women have passed away or their old
and so maybe I'm looking for their children right now
and I'm finding just any information I can find online or through books
and I'm constantly looking [inaudible] anyone knows
[laughs] something.
I really am interested in these stories.
Living in Italy, I found an academic,
a scholar who was doing research on the era of these [inaudible] women
who are the [inaudible] of these Italian men
and she did some interviews with them.
It was very difficult to get them to talk also, but I've read some
of those and that's been eye opening too.
So little by little it's coming.   [ Silence ]
>> Thank you so much.
I'm looking forward to reading your book.
>> Maaza Mengiste: Thank you.   >> Very much.
I was wondering if you are at all involved with the [inaudible] here
in terms of political activity and trying to find a way foreword
in the current situation.   [ Silence ]
>> Maaza Mengiste: My main concern here is just as,
it's really as a writer.
It's really -- because my parents are back in Ethiopia now,
I'm always aware of what's happening.
But I also understand that my role as a writer is to,
it's really to be, to write the books that I am.
In turns of politics, it's very complicated.
It gets so complicated and changes so much all the time,
but I'm aware of what happened there and my heart
and my head is constantly there in Ethiopia.
[ Silence ]   [Inaudible] [laughter].
>> This is the last one.   >> Maaza Mengiste: Okay.
>> Thanks again for the talk, very interesting.
[Inaudible] from personal experience,
is it that you can remember [inaudible] people.
Can you give us a very quick sketch of what happens to Hailu
in the beginning [inaudible] [laughter].
>> Maaza Mengiste: I've heard you have to read the book [laughter].
>> But can you tell us though, what happens to him [inaudible] beginning
and what's he like at the end?
>> Maaza Mengiste: I can say very briefly and you will have
to read the book because it's very complicated, but he's a changed man
as a result of everything.
In a very broad sense, my question in this book that I was exploring
through Hailu is what remains.
What is it that you have left after you go through everything?
What do you now hold dear that you may have taken for granted before?
And so Hailu is a different person and I think his whole family is
but he's changed as a result but you have to read [laughter].
I think that's it, okay.
>> Okay, thank you all of you for coming and thank you Maaza...
>> Maaza Mengiste: Thank you, thank you.
[Inaudible] experience, thank you.
>> For the nice presentation and I urge you
to buy her books [laughter] [applause].
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.