ABSTRACT
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.
