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Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move
Thoughtful, original reflections on migration and identity from an African woman abroad.
What does it feel like to move through a world designed to limit and exclude you? What are the joys and pains of holidays for people of colour, when guidebooks are never written with them in mind? How are black lives today impacted by the othering legacy of colonial cultures and policies? What can travel tell us about our sense of self, of home, of belonging and identity? Why has the world order become hostile to human mobility, as old as humanity itself, when more people are on the move than ever? Nanjala Nyabola is constantly exploring the world, working with migrants and confronting complex realities challenging common assumptions - both hers and others'. From Nepal to Botswana, Sicily to Haiti, New York to Nairobi, her sharp, humane essays ask tough questions and offer surprising, deeply shocking and sometimes funny answers. It is time we saw the world through her eyes.
What does it feel like to move through a world designed to limit and exclude you? What are the joys and pains of holidays for people of colour, when guidebooks are never written with them in mind? How are black lives today impacted by the othering legacy of colonial cultures and policies? What can travel tell us about our sense of self, of home, of belonging and identity? Why has the world order become hostile to human mobility, as old as humanity itself, when more people are on the move than ever? Nanjala Nyabola is constantly exploring the world, working with migrants and confronting complex realities challenging common assumptions - both hers and others'. From Nepal to Botswana, Sicily to Haiti, New York to Nairobi, her sharp, humane essays ask tough questions and offer surprising, deeply shocking and sometimes funny answers. It is time we saw the world through her eyes.
264 pages, Paperback
First published November 19, 2020
45 people are currently reading
1289 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
October 5, 2022
"This is not a travel memoir. These are essays inspired by travel, about the way it changed what I think matters and about the ideas that come from dislocation."
• TRAVELLING WHILE BLACK: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move by Nanjala Nyabola, 2020.
Loved this collection of essays, my first time encountering the work of Kenyan human rights attorney and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola.
The book opens with a great piece on her time in Haiti, learning Kreyol and working with young people. Other essays move swiftly to locations like Burkina Faso, Italy, Nepal, and travels in her own country or Kenya. She challenges notions of pan-Africanism and how it is negated by long visa processes in some countries for refugees to gain entry into neighboring African countries. She speaks to her own experiences, some quite harrowing, of sexism and racism she has experienced "on the road", lightly in the essay "Oh, The Place You'll Pee" and deeper in other essays about her near death experiences in Nepal at Everest Base Camp.
My favorite essay was her long piece "Looking for Bessie", a tribute to the writer Bessie Head, her South African birth and her life in exile in Botswana. Nyabola traces Bessie Head's life, interviewing people in her hometown, seeing her childhood home, and the library that bears her name.
I picked this book up during #ReadtheWorld21 focus on East Africa, and didn't get to it then - such a treat to read it now! ✨ 5 stars from me!
• TRAVELLING WHILE BLACK: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move by Nanjala Nyabola, 2020.
Loved this collection of essays, my first time encountering the work of Kenyan human rights attorney and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola.
The book opens with a great piece on her time in Haiti, learning Kreyol and working with young people. Other essays move swiftly to locations like Burkina Faso, Italy, Nepal, and travels in her own country or Kenya. She challenges notions of pan-Africanism and how it is negated by long visa processes in some countries for refugees to gain entry into neighboring African countries. She speaks to her own experiences, some quite harrowing, of sexism and racism she has experienced "on the road", lightly in the essay "Oh, The Place You'll Pee" and deeper in other essays about her near death experiences in Nepal at Everest Base Camp.
My favorite essay was her long piece "Looking for Bessie", a tribute to the writer Bessie Head, her South African birth and her life in exile in Botswana. Nyabola traces Bessie Head's life, interviewing people in her hometown, seeing her childhood home, and the library that bears her name.
I picked this book up during #ReadtheWorld21 focus on East Africa, and didn't get to it then - such a treat to read it now! ✨ 5 stars from me!
February 6, 2021
Brilliant collection of essays that touch on such important topics that definitely changed how I view things - travel and all.
February 21, 2021
This is such a prescient book that got me at just the right time. Semi-autibiographical in nature, it charts the author's path to "enlightenment". That mobility, whether as a traveler or as a migrant is deeply rooted in the world and always will be. To understand that is to understand that we are all human and all deserve to be treated with the complexities that come with that.
January 4, 2022
Honestly torn between 3 and 4 stars for this one. 3.5 but not quite as good as some of the 4s I have.
*What I enjoyed*
the themes of intersectionality. The essays on Asylum, Photography, African Xenophobia, and peeing (yes, peeing!) really struck me. The essays are not entirely about being Black but also other marginalised persons (women, asylum seekers, etc.). I enjoyed the non-personal essays more than the personal ones.
*What I didn’t enjoy*
I really do not enjoy Nanjala’s writing style. It feels confused to me. My biggest issue is that I can’t tell if this reads like and autobiography or an academic work. The writing was sometimes superfluous. It seems to attempt to be dialectical but sometimes falls short/ seems shallow and regurgitated.
*What I enjoyed*
the themes of intersectionality. The essays on Asylum, Photography, African Xenophobia, and peeing (yes, peeing!) really struck me. The essays are not entirely about being Black but also other marginalised persons (women, asylum seekers, etc.). I enjoyed the non-personal essays more than the personal ones.
*What I didn’t enjoy*
I really do not enjoy Nanjala’s writing style. It feels confused to me. My biggest issue is that I can’t tell if this reads like and autobiography or an academic work. The writing was sometimes superfluous. It seems to attempt to be dialectical but sometimes falls short/ seems shallow and regurgitated.
December 15, 2020
I have so many good memories with this. So many. There was that essay I read while my neighbour's dogs howled in the background, the other one I read in the friendly early morning sun while my cat shielded itself using the shadow cast by the book or that Haiti essay which I read on my way home as dusk was setting and it was a race against natural light where I could barely make out the words of the last page of the essay...
I knew of Nanjala but didn't know, know her. Much in the same way I know of Agatha Christie but have never bothered to find out how she looks like, if its her pen name or her actual name. It was the knowing of purely from writings where your imagination makes up its own image of the author. That all changed when I came across this interview of Nanjala by John Githongo. I was blown away. Kongole to John for simply letting Nanjala speak freely with minimal interruptions. Nanjala is one of those articulate people who speak about serious issues in a conversational manner where you don't feel like you are sitting through a pretentious woke lecture or a sermon from a self righteous preacher. She could say, " Its sunny outside" and for a split second you could think there is something Zen about it before it hits you she is just commenting about the weather. Yeah, she is that good.
I was in her thrall from the interview that on a whim I went to my local bookshop on the off chance that they had this book. One of the small joys in life is finding that they did. This was the week everyone was buying Obama's book and I was the only one on the checkout counter buying this. The essays are just a lulu. The most celebrated is the one on Bessie Head. It is such a romantic essay that I feel it to be criminal to confess that I didn't know of Bessie before reading this book. But I won't beat myself too much for that, there are some things we just don't know and that's why we read though you can bet a lot of money I am going to check out her books.
The essays are nuanced in such a way that for me to review them I would quote long excerpts that it just easier to tell you to go read them and make up your own mind. My only qualm is that I felt the essay on Nepal hiking to be a bit too rushed. I wanted to know more about the evacuation and if after that Nanjala gave up hiking and joined us in the time honored sport of watching TV and walking to the fridge to see what we can eat.I hope she'll write an interlude to that.
I could be accused that being Kenyan I am gassing up the book out of a sense of patriotism but this book doesn't need my recommendation, it pleads its own cause. The theme of migration/emigration is the side effect of the creeping inequality that is being ignored in favor of topics such as global warming. Covid 19 has showed us how inequality mostly determines your survival from the pandemic and unless we do something this slow burn will one day turn into an explosion... This collection is a must read.
I knew of Nanjala but didn't know, know her. Much in the same way I know of Agatha Christie but have never bothered to find out how she looks like, if its her pen name or her actual name. It was the knowing of purely from writings where your imagination makes up its own image of the author. That all changed when I came across this interview of Nanjala by John Githongo. I was blown away. Kongole to John for simply letting Nanjala speak freely with minimal interruptions. Nanjala is one of those articulate people who speak about serious issues in a conversational manner where you don't feel like you are sitting through a pretentious woke lecture or a sermon from a self righteous preacher. She could say, " Its sunny outside" and for a split second you could think there is something Zen about it before it hits you she is just commenting about the weather. Yeah, she is that good.
I was in her thrall from the interview that on a whim I went to my local bookshop on the off chance that they had this book. One of the small joys in life is finding that they did. This was the week everyone was buying Obama's book and I was the only one on the checkout counter buying this. The essays are just a lulu. The most celebrated is the one on Bessie Head. It is such a romantic essay that I feel it to be criminal to confess that I didn't know of Bessie before reading this book. But I won't beat myself too much for that, there are some things we just don't know and that's why we read though you can bet a lot of money I am going to check out her books.
The essays are nuanced in such a way that for me to review them I would quote long excerpts that it just easier to tell you to go read them and make up your own mind. My only qualm is that I felt the essay on Nepal hiking to be a bit too rushed. I wanted to know more about the evacuation and if after that Nanjala gave up hiking and joined us in the time honored sport of watching TV and walking to the fridge to see what we can eat.I hope she'll write an interlude to that.
I could be accused that being Kenyan I am gassing up the book out of a sense of patriotism but this book doesn't need my recommendation, it pleads its own cause. The theme of migration/emigration is the side effect of the creeping inequality that is being ignored in favor of topics such as global warming. Covid 19 has showed us how inequality mostly determines your survival from the pandemic and unless we do something this slow burn will one day turn into an explosion... This collection is a must read.
April 15, 2021
I picked up this book purely because I thought it would be cute to be reading it while traveling. It turned out to be highly relatable, thoughtful, funny, heartwarming, and also filled with interesting information. “The African Is Not at Home” and “Periodic Offerings to the Visa Gods” really resonated since I’d just been put through a harrowing anti-black process to go to South Africa and had vowed to only (willingly) go to countries in Africa that don’t require a visa or issue them on arrival. Travelers will find it so relatable but even if you don’t, the writing is marvelous. Loved it!
June 28, 2021
Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move covered a truly astounding number of topics from the ongoing impacts of colonialism on the housing market in Nairobi to Nyabola's experiences traveling the world. Nyabola is an excellent writer who often tied two seemingly separate concepts into one, cohesive essay. I learned a lot and look forward to reading more by Nyabola in the future.
C/W:
C/W:
December 3, 2020
Easy enough to rate: 5/5, but how to explain?
It's a book written with great passion, and it carries you along. But as author explains at the beginning, she's coming from a place of privilege as she writes; and that comes across throughout the book, down to ways she sees, perhaps.
Then, I struggled to tell who the audience of the book was to be: Academics? Humanitarian workers? Westerners? Privileged Africans who travel? That kind of distracted me, especially when I came to dense passages full of jargon and high concepts. In that sense, not the most accessible book.
However, there's a lot to think about in here, and it's very much worth reading, not least because it's an important voice, and an important perspective: a black woman, about travel, race, politics, Africa, xenophobia, writing, and much else.
It's a book written with great passion, and it carries you along. But as author explains at the beginning, she's coming from a place of privilege as she writes; and that comes across throughout the book, down to ways she sees, perhaps.
Then, I struggled to tell who the audience of the book was to be: Academics? Humanitarian workers? Westerners? Privileged Africans who travel? That kind of distracted me, especially when I came to dense passages full of jargon and high concepts. In that sense, not the most accessible book.
However, there's a lot to think about in here, and it's very much worth reading, not least because it's an important voice, and an important perspective: a black woman, about travel, race, politics, Africa, xenophobia, writing, and much else.
April 15, 2025
The most relatable book I’ve read. I’ve never had a book articulate my feelings/ thoughts and questions so clearly and beautifully. Please read this book if you can!! Might include a quote in this review toooo
January 23, 2021
This is the second book by Nanjala that I enjoyed.I deeply connected with the concepts unpacked in the memoir that are way deeper than the title suggested.On the face value,one might be misguided that this could be a lite travel memoir but if you have interacted with Nanjala’s mind in different spaces,you quickly realize that this is a solid book about various intersectional issues such as race,colonialism,society and human beings at large.This book struck a chord with my many passions and I found myself reaffirming my commitment to things like small acts of resistance.I always believe that when you know better,you do better and that has always been my philosophy around pushing back on consumerism and the beast that capitalism is so that chapter was one of my favorites.This is an essential read I must say.Nanjala is certainly cementing her place as a literary giant from East Africa.
June 7, 2022
When I started reading this and Nyabola gives the little speech in her foreword on how this book is not a travel memoir, I was like "sure, you feel like you need to elevate this, somehow don't like the label, that's frustrating but let's get on with it". But guys, this is NOT a travel memoir! And at first that disappointed me, that's how this was advertised to me and that's why I was rather excited for this, I mean, come on, I am the biggest travel memoir fan. But I came around and really appreciated what this book formed itself into.
What you get in fact is an essay collection that has some of Nyabola's personal experiences but those appear more tangentially, more as the hook to hang the purpose of the specific essay on. Heavily focused on how race (and there especially how being black) plays into movement, most often in the form of migrant movements but also into traveling. There are also some extremely insightful pieces on her home country Kenya in regards to race relations and tensions. Her own background as a lawyer with a focus in human rights and a political analyst guides the writing and her personal passion for traveling delivers that touch of personal context. Her writing style isn't necessarily my favorite, I found it maybe a bit too academic but it serves its purpose well. And very contrary to my expectations and reading habits, I ended up preferring the essays where Nyabola makes herself scarce and centered purely in on the topic at hand. I had meant to read a bit on refugees in the world but hadn't figured out the right book yet, so this accident was in some way a rather convenient one. Seriously, what she has to say about how the (Western) world is more and more shutting its borders is so spot on and so connected with some of my feelings on the state of things that I didn't know how to properly argue and express. So she comes along and gives me some knowledge and facts in that regard, thank you very much!
Her reflections do get a little repetitive, she sometimes slips a little into humble bragging (as in I speak a gazillion languages and get educated at the best universities but now the poor, simple people teach me life lessons. Insert eye roll). I personally missed more personal aspects a more memoir-ish text would deliver, I know she was straight and upfront that this is not that kind of book. Still, the me reader would have appreciated some shortcomings or ugliness from her side, she comes of rather perfect... But her observations are worth it. For me this held a great balance between confirming things that were floating anchorless in my brain but also open my eyes to different experiences and hardships, making me see and consider things I hadn't quite like that before. It also confirmed that I really want to/ need to read more about travel, migration and refugees from voices of color and from voices of the world.
My favorite essays: A Thousand Words/ The End of Asylum/ Periodic Offerings to the Visa Gods/ This is for the Community/ Sagarmantha/ On Race
What you get in fact is an essay collection that has some of Nyabola's personal experiences but those appear more tangentially, more as the hook to hang the purpose of the specific essay on. Heavily focused on how race (and there especially how being black) plays into movement, most often in the form of migrant movements but also into traveling. There are also some extremely insightful pieces on her home country Kenya in regards to race relations and tensions. Her own background as a lawyer with a focus in human rights and a political analyst guides the writing and her personal passion for traveling delivers that touch of personal context. Her writing style isn't necessarily my favorite, I found it maybe a bit too academic but it serves its purpose well. And very contrary to my expectations and reading habits, I ended up preferring the essays where Nyabola makes herself scarce and centered purely in on the topic at hand. I had meant to read a bit on refugees in the world but hadn't figured out the right book yet, so this accident was in some way a rather convenient one. Seriously, what she has to say about how the (Western) world is more and more shutting its borders is so spot on and so connected with some of my feelings on the state of things that I didn't know how to properly argue and express. So she comes along and gives me some knowledge and facts in that regard, thank you very much!
Her reflections do get a little repetitive, she sometimes slips a little into humble bragging (as in I speak a gazillion languages and get educated at the best universities but now the poor, simple people teach me life lessons. Insert eye roll). I personally missed more personal aspects a more memoir-ish text would deliver, I know she was straight and upfront that this is not that kind of book. Still, the me reader would have appreciated some shortcomings or ugliness from her side, she comes of rather perfect... But her observations are worth it. For me this held a great balance between confirming things that were floating anchorless in my brain but also open my eyes to different experiences and hardships, making me see and consider things I hadn't quite like that before. It also confirmed that I really want to/ need to read more about travel, migration and refugees from voices of color and from voices of the world.
My favorite essays: A Thousand Words/ The End of Asylum/ Periodic Offerings to the Visa Gods/ This is for the Community/ Sagarmantha/ On Race
January 8, 2022
Before I opened this book, the most I knew about Nanjala was her twitter handle, which I would usually scroll past without much attention. But here, I have come to see her pen her perspective on topics like race, travel, xenophobia, politics, marginalization, writing... all in just over 200 pages. The murky world that we live in where we are defined by the colour of our skin, our birth district and what we have in our pockets.
Unfortunately, the masses that these messages should reach will not have access to this book. Because, like the author, only the privileged will get it.
Unfortunately, the masses that these messages should reach will not have access to this book. Because, like the author, only the privileged will get it.
April 24, 2023
Amazing essays - I found myself copying lengthy quotes into my journal. Nyabola has a distinctly inquisitive and powerful perspective that really opens the mind. There are a lot of pieces of history and literature I need to look into coming out of this!
April 15, 2023
Must read.
Read
January 19, 2025I enjoyed hearing about the different places she has traveled to, and her home country of Kenya.
May 3, 2021
Nyabola insists this is not a travel memoir. The truth is this book is many things at once. A book full of knowledge about how mobility is affected by racial and gender privilege, a reflection on how those identity dimensions are intertwined with our concepts of home/safety/fear, an ode to the practice of writing as something unavoidable and necessary for the self existence and expression, a wake-up call to white humanitarian workers and white reporters on how they narrate, or don't, black experience. Very necessary.
September 1, 2021
A sobering read! An autobiographical travel account that examines issues of race, human mobility, colonization/decolonization, patriarchy, white supremacy, advocacy, only to mention but a few. There is no better way to summarize the book than by quoting the author, "...Human beings seem to default to closed groups, and it takes significant intellect, empathy and intention to open our social and political mindsets and accept others as equal. We make up spurious rules that allow us to conclude that “we” are not like “them”."
December 16, 2022
Based on the title I thought this was going to be an intersectional analysis of the author's personal traveling experiences, and now I feel dumb for assuming that. This is not a travel memoir. It's actually a collection of essays about migration policies and international culture/politics with a focus on Africa. The book isn't remotely what I was expecting, but I thought it was really interesting regardless. If I had known what the book was really about, I would have been just as (if not more) interested in reading it
July 1, 2021
Nanjala is such a brilliant writer and yes Gorom Gorom is now on my bucket list. This book captures perfectly what it is like to be a black female traveller. All the subtle and crude things we go through that I would never have articulated as well as Nanjala did.
This was a thrilling, eye opening, educative read, highly recommended it! Thank you Nanjala for sharing your lived experiences in such a thought provoking manner 🙌🏾
This was a thrilling, eye opening, educative read, highly recommended it! Thank you Nanjala for sharing your lived experiences in such a thought provoking manner 🙌🏾
July 10, 2021
It wasn't what I expected, it was better. The title is somewhat misleading in that it only touches the bare minimum of what the author covers. Nyabola talks about racism and the dangers of being raced, but she also talks about language, geography, grief, Kenyan history, segragation, and a familiar to me feeling when you travel somewhere with a majority black population but you are still other. 10/10
January 16, 2021
One of the most thought-provoking books I read last year - a sweep through race, migration, refugee policy, xenophobia and the legacy of colonialism that still haunts both Kenya and Nairobi.
Very much worth your time, especially if this is not your usual perspective.
Very much worth your time, especially if this is not your usual perspective.
Read
October 24, 2022Illuminating collection of essays on the experience of black travel from a female Kenyan perspective. Nanjala Nyabola describes the joys of backpacking, the promise of Pan-Africanism, the concept of “tribe”, the problems with visas, the enduring legacy of colonialism, the diversity within Africa, African literature, the supposed white audiences of guidebooks, experiences of racism while traveling, and the tragedy when refugees are not welcomed. Some highlights:
“Race (like gender, sexuality and other markers of identity) shapes travel—and backpacking especially—in such palpable ways. As a black woman, there are spaces where my race and gender make me invisible, which means that I can immerse myself more fully into the lives of those around me. And there are spaces where it makes me hyper-visible, like taking the train from Vienna to Bern and being the only people in our full carriage who get their identity documents checked.”
“The fact that the Kurdis were running away from Syria in clandestine rubber dinghies, instead of being airlifted out, screams volumes about the collapsing refugee protection system, and the hypocrisy of countries that will sell weapons to other states, but deny sanctuary to victims of the wars that then ensue.”
“Books are like that. If the right book enters your life at the wrong moment, it can leave you cold and underwhelmed. But at the right moment, it can change everything.”
“Visas are a cruel and unusual invention. They are a reminder of the humans’ near-infinite capacity to invent things out of thin air and then reorder their lives completely around it, including their measure of the value of human life. Theoretically, a visa is a small piece of paper that goes into your passport to tell the immigration official that you are good and deserve to enter. But in practice, the documents have become loaded with all the politics of a rapidly securitising, racist and violent world. The visa is a stamp of authority and approval. The visa is a means of control. The visa is a tool for humiliation. The visa is a document that reminds you—and especially all of us unwashed masses of the global South—that we are fundamentally unwanted in the West, and this flimsy document is all that stands between us and summary ejection. The visa is a power play, a cash grab, and a half-assed invitation to enter but not belong… visas are loaded with ritual humiliations and demands for obeisance that are designed to remind the applicant that they are lesser. For single Nigerian women to travel to Thailand, they must provide a letter from their father authorising their trip. For Kenyans to enter Canada, they must provide proof of wealth.”
— Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move by Nanjala Nyabola
https://a.co/6MmUVxA
“Race (like gender, sexuality and other markers of identity) shapes travel—and backpacking especially—in such palpable ways. As a black woman, there are spaces where my race and gender make me invisible, which means that I can immerse myself more fully into the lives of those around me. And there are spaces where it makes me hyper-visible, like taking the train from Vienna to Bern and being the only people in our full carriage who get their identity documents checked.”
“The fact that the Kurdis were running away from Syria in clandestine rubber dinghies, instead of being airlifted out, screams volumes about the collapsing refugee protection system, and the hypocrisy of countries that will sell weapons to other states, but deny sanctuary to victims of the wars that then ensue.”
“Books are like that. If the right book enters your life at the wrong moment, it can leave you cold and underwhelmed. But at the right moment, it can change everything.”
“Visas are a cruel and unusual invention. They are a reminder of the humans’ near-infinite capacity to invent things out of thin air and then reorder their lives completely around it, including their measure of the value of human life. Theoretically, a visa is a small piece of paper that goes into your passport to tell the immigration official that you are good and deserve to enter. But in practice, the documents have become loaded with all the politics of a rapidly securitising, racist and violent world. The visa is a stamp of authority and approval. The visa is a means of control. The visa is a tool for humiliation. The visa is a document that reminds you—and especially all of us unwashed masses of the global South—that we are fundamentally unwanted in the West, and this flimsy document is all that stands between us and summary ejection. The visa is a power play, a cash grab, and a half-assed invitation to enter but not belong… visas are loaded with ritual humiliations and demands for obeisance that are designed to remind the applicant that they are lesser. For single Nigerian women to travel to Thailand, they must provide a letter from their father authorising their trip. For Kenyans to enter Canada, they must provide proof of wealth.”
— Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move by Nanjala Nyabola
https://a.co/6MmUVxA
April 8, 2024
I would definitely recommend this collection of essays! It covers various themes and subjects broadly related to travel, migration and tourism, discussed through the lens of anti-racism and intersectional feminism. I particularly liked that Nyabola is Kenyan and brings an African perspective to conversations on feminist and social justice issues that tend to be dominated by Western/Global North thinkers. She accomplishes what she set out to do, doing a great job of highlighing the inequalities and structural injustices that are exposed by travel. I also liked the breadth of her themes, from asylum and visas, to travel guides, toilets, anti-black racism and pan-African solidarity within Africa, terrorism and Western aid organisations. I took a class on queer travel writing, and I'm pretty sure her essay, Travelling While Black, was one of the introductory readings to challenge our assumptions about travel writing. I also liked Looking for Bessie, a kind of travel pilgrimage commemorating Bessie Head (a South African author) and the erasure and underappreciation of black women writers from literary canons, inspired by Alice Walker's efforts to save Zora Neale Hurston and her writings from obscurity. As far as I can tell, Hurston is having a come back right now, so I hope Nyabola will be able to do the same for Head! I will definintely be checking her out. In any event, this is a great collection to read if you're delving into these issues for the first time, or you'd like a fresh perspective. I also enjoyed the narration by Dami Olukoya, though I did notice a few mistakes that might have been typos in the original text or errors on the part of the narrator, but not enough to detract from the listening experience. I'd love to get a physical or digital copy of this book and I'd recommend the audiobook.
September 6, 2021
I wish there were more than five stars, for this superb book, that hits the intersection between memoir, essay and autobiographical writing with perfection. So much wisdom, personal experience and academic chops which illuminate many subjects coming together with Nyabola's laser sharp lvision.
There are so many sections in this book, I marked, and here is just one of them:
"Poor people are not just their poverty. People who live in slums are not defined by their housing situation. The inability to distinguish between the two leads to a lot of half truths and half baked interventions. I think that the average person who lives in an informal settlement would love to have better housing and access to services. But they would also love to maintain some of the cultural and social opportunities, that in a place like Nairobi, are not available elsewhere ... so when Lonely Planet calls Nairobi "Africa for Beginners", they're not talking about the street skaters of Majengo or the Somali restaurants of Eastleigh. They're not writing about Gikomba Market or the nyamo choma restaurants of Kenyatta market. They are writing about all the upmarket places that have been deliberately packaged to be easy for outsiders, often to the exclusion of locals... They are talking about a tourism paradigm that Kenyans call "sahani za wageni' - that preserves the best for outsiders, but treats its own like garbage.
There are so many sections in this book, I marked, and here is just one of them:
"Poor people are not just their poverty. People who live in slums are not defined by their housing situation. The inability to distinguish between the two leads to a lot of half truths and half baked interventions. I think that the average person who lives in an informal settlement would love to have better housing and access to services. But they would also love to maintain some of the cultural and social opportunities, that in a place like Nairobi, are not available elsewhere ... so when Lonely Planet calls Nairobi "Africa for Beginners", they're not talking about the street skaters of Majengo or the Somali restaurants of Eastleigh. They're not writing about Gikomba Market or the nyamo choma restaurants of Kenyatta market. They are writing about all the upmarket places that have been deliberately packaged to be easy for outsiders, often to the exclusion of locals... They are talking about a tourism paradigm that Kenyans call "sahani za wageni' - that preserves the best for outsiders, but treats its own like garbage.
December 3, 2020
I am in the process of reading Nanjala Nyabola's book Travelling While Black and it's resonating so much with me at such a deep level. Like Nyabola, I am educated African woman who is also a traveller and a scholar. She says things I have thought about but never expressed so eloquently. For example she writes:
"In fact, race is one if the most fascinating constructions of the modern era, and travel has curious ways of throwing up its crude contradictions. We know the science. Biologically the is little difference between the different human races...Yet, because so many cultures are obsessed with categorising real and imagined biological boundaries between various groups...Groups use their privilege to exact physical and structural violence on others...We become determined that our group is different, and the other groups less worthy. Human beings seem to default to closed groups, and it takes significant intellect, empathy and intention to open our social and political mindsets and accept others as equal. We make up spurious rules that allow us to conclude that "we" are not like "them".
In reading Nyabola's book i believe more firmly that books do not teach us new things but rather reacquaint us with old knowledge which has always existed within us, but whose existence we might not have been aware of.
"In fact, race is one if the most fascinating constructions of the modern era, and travel has curious ways of throwing up its crude contradictions. We know the science. Biologically the is little difference between the different human races...Yet, because so many cultures are obsessed with categorising real and imagined biological boundaries between various groups...Groups use their privilege to exact physical and structural violence on others...We become determined that our group is different, and the other groups less worthy. Human beings seem to default to closed groups, and it takes significant intellect, empathy and intention to open our social and political mindsets and accept others as equal. We make up spurious rules that allow us to conclude that "we" are not like "them".
In reading Nyabola's book i believe more firmly that books do not teach us new things but rather reacquaint us with old knowledge which has always existed within us, but whose existence we might not have been aware of.
March 4, 2021
This was an education in many ways. I'd never considered that a black Nairobi native would be refused housing on account of not being of Indian descent, amongst self-segregating Indian communities - such intricacies of navigating Kenya and other parts of Africa, while racialised, are not often to be found in the books I am encouraged to read as a white woman.
I may have to read something by Bessie Head now, considering how consequential she was to the author.
I do have a criticism, and it is this: striving for the objective sometimes misses opportunities to examine the specifics of every situation. I hope that Nanjala will move to a more postmodern paradigm in this respect.
I look forward to reading her next book!
I may have to read something by Bessie Head now, considering how consequential she was to the author.
I do have a criticism, and it is this: striving for the objective sometimes misses opportunities to examine the specifics of every situation. I hope that Nanjala will move to a more postmodern paradigm in this respect.
I look forward to reading her next book!
December 31, 2021
I had attended a virtual event where Nanjala spoke and I was so swept away be her insights that I was compelled to read her book. Admittedly, I thought that I was going to be getting a collection of essays and takeaways from the various places she traveled. And though she offers some commentary on place, I'm tempted to say the title here is a misnomer. She shares in her opening pages that she has been "a migrant, a tourist, and an expat, never a refugee or displaced person, but spending much of my career working with both." What follows then are stories that bring to life the politics and philosophy that she has developed through her work and experiences. It's an interesting read that would make for an even more interesting conversation and is sure to make you think.
January 23, 2021
Loistava. Vaativa, vaikka myös paikoin viihdyttävä kirja. Nyabola kirjoittaa esseissään varmoin sanoin isoista aiheista, kuten rasismi, muuttoliikkeet, terrorismi, valta ja politiikka. Keinotekoisten rajojen, viisumien ja väestöryhmien välisen kategorisoinnin kritiikki osuu, samoin kokemukset humanitäärisen työn valtarakenteista ja Nairobin asuntomarkkinoilta. Väleissä on kepeämpiä kirjoituksia matkustamisesta maailmassa, jossa valkoinen mies on vakio, reissulta esikuvan jalanjäljillä Botswanan syrjäseudulle ja siitä, minne reppureissulla pääsee pissalle.
September 7, 2022
This book was very relatable in highlighting the extraneous nature of travel through the scrutiny and costs when applying for a visa; the fear narrative of travel perpetuated by terror attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic; and yet the exhilarating nature of travel when you see the breathtaking landscapes, marvel at architectures and take in the different flavors of food makes it all worth it. Nanjala did also utilize her penmanship to address pervasive issues in society like migration across the Mediterranean, tribalism and race especially in the context of travel.
February 18, 2021
Misleading tile, excellent essays
I bought this book based on the title. I was disappointed that it was not a collection of the stories of all the places the author had traveled to. I was met with a great collection of essays about the intersectionality of the author’s experience as a Black, Kenyan and cis gendered female in the world. However, I am very happy with the purchase as it gave me more insight and understanding of the Kenyan middle class experience.
I bought this book based on the title. I was disappointed that it was not a collection of the stories of all the places the author had traveled to. I was met with a great collection of essays about the intersectionality of the author’s experience as a Black, Kenyan and cis gendered female in the world. However, I am very happy with the purchase as it gave me more insight and understanding of the Kenyan middle class experience.
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