Dinaw Mengestu is a John D and Catherine T MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and director of Bard’s Written Arts program. Author of three novels, all New York Times Notable Books: All Our Names (Knopf, 2014), How To Read the Air (Riverhead, 2010), and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead, 2007). He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow and recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award among other honors.