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"A selective embrace": singling out all our names in Obama’s End times

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posted on 2023-06-08, 22:22 authored by John MastersonJohn Masterson
In his commendation of Appiah's Cosmopolitanism, the former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan hailed it as "an important book about the great human project of trying to live together". Aliki Varvogli provides an enabling sketch of Dinaw Mengestu in relation to How to Read the Air, the novel that precedes All Our Names. While imbued with the kind of utopianism of Obama's singular stories / shared destinies statement, Varvogli's emphasis on literature as an oft-prickly negotiator is particularly apt when it comes to Mengestu's novel. Giles Foden's Guardian review of All Our Names provides a useful plot synopsis: The narrator of the African sections is an Ethiopian who has travelled down to Uganda through Kenya. The moment of racial tension in the diner can be read as a variation on the suitably Fanonian theme of visibility and invisibility that runs throughout the novel. Jarrett's caveat-heavy emphasis on embracing a concept recalls Varvogli's notion of America as paradigm rather than place.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Routledge

Page range

232-251

Pages

322.0

Book title

Navigating the transnational in modern American literature and culture

Place of publication

London

ISBN

9781138903890

Series

Transnational Perspectives on American Literature

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Tara Stubbs, Doug Haynes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-09-03

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