Maaza Mengiste Quotes

Maybe we have to allow our discomfort as another consequence of the violence depicted. Our shared confusion and disgust can bind us to those who are suffering, rather than draw us away from them. They too have had to witness. To deny our own human reactions makes it easier to deny the humanity of those who are photographed. Though we cannot change what has happened, we can alter the symbolism attached to the images. Photographs can be more than a reminder of cruelty and the inevitable aftermath of war. There are narratives unfolding right now in South Sudan, in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo that can be rewritten. We have the ability to strip away what we’re supposed to see – just another African victim – and gaze upon what we should: a human being. But first, we have to look.

He is doing as she once did, in the naïve belief that what is buried stays that way, that what is hidden will stay unseen, that what is yours will remain always in your possession. He is being foolish.

What is lost is gone, my child, what is lost makes room for something else.

What is war? You send soldiers out and, although nobody wants to say it, you know a certain number will be killed, and you hope there will be fewer than the casualties on the other side. War is dealing with human beings as objects. (2017)

Make living your act of defiance. Record it all.

I write fiction that revolves around archival research and historical events. What I search for in documented history: what happened, is not necessarily what I seek when I write it down: what was it like, and what was left out. I go back to something Breyten Breytenbach once told me, that fiction tells a truth that history cannot. I lean into fictive truths.

Fiction gives me the right to do it. It's not an autobiography. I did have the right to tell this story. My position is that you write from the place that you are, and it's not a detriment, and it's not something that undermines any kind of authenticity. I had to understand very early on that I'm writing this book as an American, with very, very strong ties to Ethiopia—and a deep love, my family is there—but ultimately, I am writing it with an American way of looking at things. That doesn't mean that the story is not authentic. Or then you have to question what "authentic" means…

She does not want to remember but she is here and memory is gathering bones.

We all know that war destroys mankind, and in spite of their differences in race, creed, and religion, women all across the world despise war because its fruit is nothing but destruction.

in many ways, Ethiopia is an oral culture., I spent a lot of time listening to stories and histories told around dinner tables or in the sitting room. The stories my grandfather would tell were often about the Italo-Ethiopian wars, both the first and the second, and also life lessons. Those stories of my grandfather's really informed how I viewed-history, how I viewed Ethiopia; what it meant to be Ethiopian. Those were my books, the stories that I learned. When I think back to the stories that I would hear, especially when my parents would tell stories, that cadence in which they told them, and the momentum they had while telling it, that's something I am always trying to emulate in my writing. So I count them as an influence as much as anything that I've read.

It was not until a revolution tore my country apart that I began to understand how war could render decent people unrecognisable. Only when I had felt real terror did I begin to comprehend the many ways that conflict can devour us without spilling a drop of blood. (2020)

It seems that every new writer with any remote connection to the continent of Africa, either willingly or unwillingly, has first to wrestle with this question of identity before talking about what should matter most: their book...we should focus on the ability of the story to immerse us so fully in the world that has been constructed, that it feels a bit like home.

Some of my favorite writers are those who break form. I wanted to see if I could do that under their tutelage. I’m really proud of being able to combine the stories of the Ethiopians and the Italians, to force questions about both of them, about loyalty, about racism, about being subjugated by the very people who should be protecting you. These were the questions I wanted to bring forward.

She is mid-sentence, her tongue against her teeth, curving around a word lost forever.

who is to judge what makes a "real African"? It is almost impossible to apply a single identity to an entire racial or ethnic group, much less to an entire continent. As individuals, we are each comprised of a series of contradictions. We are not neatly constructed sets of qualities. At our best, we should defy simple categorisation. It is living with difficult choices and easy accommodations that makes us human and, if we're lucky, keeps us interesting. It is from within contradictory existences that some of our greatest works of literature have been born.