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How to Write About Africa
A trailblazing collection of writing from Binyavanga Wainaina's extraordinary life, featuring an introduction from his long-time friend, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie'In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions.'Binyavanga Wainaina was a seminal author and activist, remembered as one of the greatest chroniclers of contemporary African life. After his death in 2019, this ground-breaking collection brings together his pioneering writing on the African continent for the first time.A rule-breaker full of wry satire and piercing wisdom, this collection includes many of Binyavanga's most critically acclaimed pieces, including the viral satirical sensation How to Write About Africa. Writing fearlessly across a range of topics - from politics to international aid, cultural heritage and redefining sexuality, this is a remarkable illustration of a writer at the height of his power.'A fierce literary talent' Nesrine Malik, Guardian 'Arguably the most gifted prose writer of his generation . . . An absolute force of nature, his impact on the contemporary African literary scene has been unique and profoundly decisive' Brittle Paper
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
88 people are currently reading
6495 people want to read
About the author
Binyavanga Wainaina
24 books186 followersBinyavanga Wainaina was a short story writer, essayist, and journalist.
He was the founding editor of Kwani?, a leading African literary magazine based in Kenya, and he directed the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists at Bard College.
He won the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing, and wrote for many journals, including Vanity Fair, National Geographic, One Story, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly Review, Harper's, Granta, the Sunday Times, and the New York Times.
He was the founding editor of Kwani?, a leading African literary magazine based in Kenya, and he directed the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists at Bard College.
He won the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing, and wrote for many journals, including Vanity Fair, National Geographic, One Story, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly Review, Harper's, Granta, the Sunday Times, and the New York Times.
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November 20, 2024
Binyavanga Wainaina was a Kenyan author, journalist and 2002 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. His debut book, a memoir entitled One Day I Will Write About This Place, was published in 2011. In January 2014, in response to a wave of anti-gay laws passed in various African countries, Wainaina publicly announced that he was gay, first writing an essay that he described as a "lost chapter" of his 2011 memoir entitled "I am a Homosexual, Mum", and then tweeting: "I am, for anybody confused or in doubt, a homosexual. Gay, and quite happy." Wainaina, aged 48, died in 2019 after suffering from a stroke.
This essay is one of the funniest (in a laughter gets stuck in my throat kind of way) essays you will ever read. It was recommended to me by the wonderful Yamini (who else, huh?) and I am more than happy to pass this recommendation along. It literally takes five minutes to read, and you can find it freely online.
Wainaina dissects popular Western archetypes of Africans, like "The Loyal Servant", "The Ancient Wise Man", "The Modern African", "The Starving African", "The Mama", and so on and so forth... He sums up: "African characters should be colourful, exotic, larger than life—but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause." And the "funny" thing is that this does not only apply to African characters, it is applicable to almost any marginalised group. The issues Wainaina calls out are also found in popular novels such as Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, in which a white US-American woman tries (and fails) to bring to life Black US-American characters. It can't be found in Charlotte Bronte's pathetic attempts at writing a Creole woman — "empty inside, with no dialogue".
Many of these issues (blind spots as well as malicious misrepresentation) are universal, though Wainaina does a brilliant job at also pointing at the specific stereotypes that Africans (and Africa) are haunted by, like "big red sunsets", "AIDS", "mutilated genitals", "enhanced genitals" etc. etc. It's a vicious essay. Wainaina doesn't hold back. He tells it like it is. His honesty and realness is very refreshing!
Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.His satirical essay "How to Write About Africa", published in Granta magazine in 2005, attracted wide attention. Wainaina summed up the way Western media has reinforced stereotypes and pre-existing ideas of Africa by saying their representation was that: "One must treat Africa as if it were one country... [of] 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book."
This essay is one of the funniest (in a laughter gets stuck in my throat kind of way) essays you will ever read. It was recommended to me by the wonderful Yamini (who else, huh?) and I am more than happy to pass this recommendation along. It literally takes five minutes to read, and you can find it freely online.
Wainaina dissects popular Western archetypes of Africans, like "The Loyal Servant", "The Ancient Wise Man", "The Modern African", "The Starving African", "The Mama", and so on and so forth... He sums up: "African characters should be colourful, exotic, larger than life—but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause." And the "funny" thing is that this does not only apply to African characters, it is applicable to almost any marginalised group. The issues Wainaina calls out are also found in popular novels such as Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, in which a white US-American woman tries (and fails) to bring to life Black US-American characters. It can't be found in Charlotte Bronte's pathetic attempts at writing a Creole woman — "empty inside, with no dialogue".
Many of these issues (blind spots as well as malicious misrepresentation) are universal, though Wainaina does a brilliant job at also pointing at the specific stereotypes that Africans (and Africa) are haunted by, like "big red sunsets", "AIDS", "mutilated genitals", "enhanced genitals" etc. etc. It's a vicious essay. Wainaina doesn't hold back. He tells it like it is. His honesty and realness is very refreshing!
December 16, 2023
To clarify: This review is of the 368 page book that is a collection of reportage, newspaper columns, fiction, and essays, titled “How to Write About Africa.” It was published in the US in 2023. Many of the Goodreads reviews for this title are clearly limited to the four page essay “How to Write About Africa” by Wainaina that Granta published in 2008. It made Wainaina well-known outside Africa, but the collection provides a panorama of his talent and thought that isn’t hinted at in the four page essay. (The last item in the book is the title essay from Granta.)
Wainaina wrote the scathing title satire in reaction to the requisite portrayal of ‘Africa’ (one big country) by Western writers (flaming sunsets, starving children, cover with a Maasai warrior, simple Africans vs. complex animal characters, etc.). There is plenty of satire throughout the book, much aimed at colonial damage and oblivious NGO workers and westerners who 'love' Africa, but plenty aimed internally as well. He is disappointed in and often angry at corrupt or power-hungry politicians, as well as those regular people who don’t make an effort. At the same time, he sees situations where people literally are unable to make an effort. Toward the end of the book he writes a powerful piece about visiting a Sudanese doctor trying to keep sleeping sickness at bay in a country at war.
I recommend this book very highly. I think the range of topics is phenomenal. Wainaina’s clear-sightedness about how to assign responsibility is, I think, balanced by a humanity that kept looking for a way toward empowering people to make changes. One piece acknowledges what a short time had elapsed since independence, and that what had transpired was not such a surprise with no internal political foundation to build on. He seems to have an acceptance that better solutions, if they come to pass, must take time.
I also listened to much of the book via audio. The narrator is excellent. Also, Wainaina's memoir about his childhood, One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir is just as good.
I was trying to find an everyday scene to include here, from the pieces he wrote mostly for African publications. To show what he thought western writers wouldn’t show. But the search revealed a funny contradiction in my own perception. There are certainly stories about the agony of haircuts as a child, about his circumcision, about visiting relatives. But many of Wainaina’s ‘everyday’ observations are meant to intrigue his countrymen, as of course any writer’s choices are intended to do, so they highlight the lively individuality of neighborhoods, food, politics and language that is so varied in the countries he lived in and traveled to.
It is the multiplicity of cultures that I would see around me on an outing in my very diverse city in California, but on steroids. To me it seemed exotic, which is a weighted word, but in a continent of so many cultures trying to manage in so many environments with such different resources, it is a kind of life that seems to offer constant stimulation. Of course part of this is Wainaina’s own way of living in the world. He must have been on high alert at all times for both extreme and subtle sights, sounds, stories, smells and movements.
Much of Wainaina’s writing is political and socially focused. He was born in Kenya, to a father from Kenya (ethnically Kikuyu , same as Ngugi wa‘Thiong’O) and a mother from Uganda. He moved in his late teens to South Africa, lived there for about ten years, and returned to Kenya when his mother died. He has traveled all over Africa and has taught at British and US universities. He is well known for being the founding editor of the seminal literary journal Kwani?. He has yet other interests. In his early twenties he became a cook and ran restaurants, promoting African cuisine, and the book starts out with several of his columns on cooking from various African countries, complete with recipes. Wainaina was quite interested in speculative fiction and helped many other young African writers in this genre as well as in the overall literary field. He also quite courageously came out as gay in 2016 and died in 2019 of a stroke. He was revered by what seems like the entire African literary community, regarded as a warm friend and literary inspiration.
Wainaina wrote the scathing title satire in reaction to the requisite portrayal of ‘Africa’ (one big country) by Western writers (flaming sunsets, starving children, cover with a Maasai warrior, simple Africans vs. complex animal characters, etc.). There is plenty of satire throughout the book, much aimed at colonial damage and oblivious NGO workers and westerners who 'love' Africa, but plenty aimed internally as well. He is disappointed in and often angry at corrupt or power-hungry politicians, as well as those regular people who don’t make an effort. At the same time, he sees situations where people literally are unable to make an effort. Toward the end of the book he writes a powerful piece about visiting a Sudanese doctor trying to keep sleeping sickness at bay in a country at war.
I recommend this book very highly. I think the range of topics is phenomenal. Wainaina’s clear-sightedness about how to assign responsibility is, I think, balanced by a humanity that kept looking for a way toward empowering people to make changes. One piece acknowledges what a short time had elapsed since independence, and that what had transpired was not such a surprise with no internal political foundation to build on. He seems to have an acceptance that better solutions, if they come to pass, must take time.
What many in and outside Kenya know as tribes did not exist as nations before the white man came. The contracts were different, the social arrangements different. Languages were shared, and agreements and rules….And how do you create a nation out of forty or so tribes? You spend time, as frenziedly as possible over forty years, building a weave of mythology strong enough to bond the pieces together: a grammar, a constitution, mottos. But you fail to do this successfully: only blood creates nations. Only the risk of annihilation makes people abandon the ways they presently use to make sense of the world. But you must try to make this work—we know no other way, so we pretend it works. And wait and see. And become born-again Christians or drunks when things take the wrong course.
I also listened to much of the book via audio. The narrator is excellent. Also, Wainaina's memoir about his childhood, One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir is just as good.
I was trying to find an everyday scene to include here, from the pieces he wrote mostly for African publications. To show what he thought western writers wouldn’t show. But the search revealed a funny contradiction in my own perception. There are certainly stories about the agony of haircuts as a child, about his circumcision, about visiting relatives. But many of Wainaina’s ‘everyday’ observations are meant to intrigue his countrymen, as of course any writer’s choices are intended to do, so they highlight the lively individuality of neighborhoods, food, politics and language that is so varied in the countries he lived in and traveled to.
It is the multiplicity of cultures that I would see around me on an outing in my very diverse city in California, but on steroids. To me it seemed exotic, which is a weighted word, but in a continent of so many cultures trying to manage in so many environments with such different resources, it is a kind of life that seems to offer constant stimulation. Of course part of this is Wainaina’s own way of living in the world. He must have been on high alert at all times for both extreme and subtle sights, sounds, stories, smells and movements.
Just as the sun drops behind the silhouette of the city in the distance, we turn off the main road. We enter another planet.
It is as if we are in a city of paraffin lamps, and there are literally thousands of people milling about. Narrow paths zigzag between shacks. In front of the shacks something is being sold. Meat is grilling, chapatis are doing triple somersaults off flat pans, and vetkoek are spitting with fury. The energy of the place is unbelievable.
There are piles and piles of neatly arranged tomatoes, red onions, mangoes. And kale. Red Yellow, and green bananas hang from ceilings…There are acrobats, charismatic preachers with mobile PA systems, butchers and fishmongers, secondhand book stalls, bars…
It is only once I adjust to the frenzy around me that I notice the art. It is like the cover of a fantasy novel. I guess nobody needs to buy realism for their walls; it’s free here. I notice that most of the better paintings have been done by the same person: Joga. He is sent for, and…a diminutive young man with uncomfortably naked eyes joins us. ..He has only a primary-school education and has never been to an art gallery. He just likes to draw.
He takes us around his favorite works. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have felt beauty so utterly.
Much of Wainaina’s writing is political and socially focused. He was born in Kenya, to a father from Kenya (ethnically Kikuyu , same as Ngugi wa‘Thiong’O) and a mother from Uganda. He moved in his late teens to South Africa, lived there for about ten years, and returned to Kenya when his mother died. He has traveled all over Africa and has taught at British and US universities. He is well known for being the founding editor of the seminal literary journal Kwani?. He has yet other interests. In his early twenties he became a cook and ran restaurants, promoting African cuisine, and the book starts out with several of his columns on cooking from various African countries, complete with recipes. Wainaina was quite interested in speculative fiction and helped many other young African writers in this genre as well as in the overall literary field. He also quite courageously came out as gay in 2016 and died in 2019 of a stroke. He was revered by what seems like the entire African literary community, regarded as a warm friend and literary inspiration.
Read
May 10, 2011How could you not love a book with this title that starts, "Some tips: sunsets and starvation are good."
November 24, 2023
Razor-sharp, insightful, funny are some of the words I could use when it comes to what my feelings are after reading this book. From blazing critiques about the stereotypes of Africa that are adopted by white writers and foreigners to showing inner lives of different people within the different African countries he has been in with all the complexity and nuance, that would put to shame the façade that Western media has created for years of Africa as this "dark continent" that has been mystified and exoticized within the mainstream.
One of the short stories in the book called "Ships in high transit" is a masterwork of African literature I've seen of late in its satirical depiction of the commercialisation and commodification of the African tourism industry where both foreigners and Africans are complicit with partaking in this. Utterly brilliant. I will not say I was completely blown away by everything I read being new to Binyavanga's work, I will definitely return to this to see if it will still retain the same punch.
One of the short stories in the book called "Ships in high transit" is a masterwork of African literature I've seen of late in its satirical depiction of the commercialisation and commodification of the African tourism industry where both foreigners and Africans are complicit with partaking in this. Utterly brilliant. I will not say I was completely blown away by everything I read being new to Binyavanga's work, I will definitely return to this to see if it will still retain the same punch.
August 22, 2017
This was a fun read. A ridiculously fun read. Under "irony" in the dictionary, there's a little picture of Binyavanga Wainaina. It's a very short, tongue-in-cheek reflection about Africa and the people who write about Africa. A few posts down my Instagram feed I went on a long rant about African literature focusing on the same generalizing themes.. (wildlife, AIDS, coups), well this little book talked about the same thing but with lots of dry wit and panache. I loved it!
Wainaina tackles stereotypes about Africa with effortless humor - Africa is one large country; African cuisine consists of monkey brain; a "country" of breathtaking red sunsets but plagued with HIV/AIDS, war and famine; a land of naked breasts and rotting bodies. Wainaina writes that Africa is worth romanticizing but not deeply thinking about.
It's a very short read, can be done in half an hour. Compromises of three stories. Well, the term 'stories' would be inaccurate because it's non fiction. So, yeah, three short essays but packs a punch. It forces the reader to ask him/herself.. Do you know Africa, or are you still stereotyping it?
February 12, 2019
A quick satirical story that is just brilliant in exploring the ironies, contradictions and blatant hypocrisy in some of the literature approaching the African continent. Easy and quick to read, funny and just filled with truth despite the satirical tone. It's easily found online, and everyone should read!
June 28, 2013
I gave it 4 stars because I was only interested in reading the article 'how to write about africa', which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Want to read
August 22, 2024Dewey 814.6
August 2, 2023
Binyavanga is brilliant!!!! I thoroughly enjoyed this read and think everyone should read his work.
My absolute favorite chapters specifically were “The Continental Dispatch” and “Food Slut” however the Writing Kenya: Short Stories (fictional, more serious, character-based storytelling) and Discovering Home: Essays (more about his own life) were a very close second. His writing is so precise so sarcastic and hilarious while still being so real.
I am just obsessed with the storytelling. I am obsessed with Binyavanga’s voice that comes through his writing like someone who has truly lived a life.
I cannot recommend ENOUGH that you read his most famous piece “How to write about Africa” you’ll fall in love with his satire. And secondly: YOU HAVE to read “The Continental Dispatch” chapter (it’s a collection of articles he wrote in a column for a newspaper). Cannot stress enough it’s incredible!!!!! He’s hilarious without trying to be.
His fictional short stories “All Things Remaining Equal” “Hell is in bed with Mrs. Peprah” and “An Affair to Dismember” are a MUST read. The storytelling in them I loooooved.
“Food Slut” i just adored because it’s about one of my favorite topics: food. he talks about his relationship with food and the history of African cuisine and cross cultural cuisines.
ok sorry for this essay I wrote at 4 am xoxo
My absolute favorite chapters specifically were “The Continental Dispatch” and “Food Slut” however the Writing Kenya: Short Stories (fictional, more serious, character-based storytelling) and Discovering Home: Essays (more about his own life) were a very close second. His writing is so precise so sarcastic and hilarious while still being so real.
I am just obsessed with the storytelling. I am obsessed with Binyavanga’s voice that comes through his writing like someone who has truly lived a life.
I cannot recommend ENOUGH that you read his most famous piece “How to write about Africa” you’ll fall in love with his satire. And secondly: YOU HAVE to read “The Continental Dispatch” chapter (it’s a collection of articles he wrote in a column for a newspaper). Cannot stress enough it’s incredible!!!!! He’s hilarious without trying to be.
His fictional short stories “All Things Remaining Equal” “Hell is in bed with Mrs. Peprah” and “An Affair to Dismember” are a MUST read. The storytelling in them I loooooved.
“Food Slut” i just adored because it’s about one of my favorite topics: food. he talks about his relationship with food and the history of African cuisine and cross cultural cuisines.
ok sorry for this essay I wrote at 4 am xoxo
July 4, 2023
Very interesting read. The collection focuses a lot on the author's experiences in South Africa and Kenya (and its neighbors). I was especially taken by the short stories included in this collection and their cynical perspective on the motives of Westerners in Africa--he writes with cutting sarcasm about white saviorism. Another theme that runs through many of these essays demonstrates languages' effects on how different people interact with the world and how they're seen by other Africans and outsiders.
July 6, 2019
Thanks to the wonderful booktuber books by leynes, I discovered this little masterpiece.
If you are a Westerner and want to write about Africa, this essay tells you exactly what you need to do…
It is wonderfully satirical and it will only take you about 5 minutes to read.
You can click on the link in the book description or listen to Leynes reading it on YouTube.
I tried to find a few good quotes to make you want to go and read it. Turns out that every single line is brilliant. Still, I managed to narrow it down to 5:
„Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans.“
„Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. […] Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.“
„Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa“
„Describe, in detail, naked breasts (young, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or enhanced genitals. Or any kind of genitals. And dead bodies. Or, better, naked dead bodies. And especially rotting naked dead bodies.“
„Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.“
If you are a Westerner and want to write about Africa, this essay tells you exactly what you need to do…
It is wonderfully satirical and it will only take you about 5 minutes to read.
You can click on the link in the book description or listen to Leynes reading it on YouTube.
I tried to find a few good quotes to make you want to go and read it. Turns out that every single line is brilliant. Still, I managed to narrow it down to 5:
„Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans.“
„Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. […] Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.“
„Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa“
„Describe, in detail, naked breasts (young, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or enhanced genitals. Or any kind of genitals. And dead bodies. Or, better, naked dead bodies. And especially rotting naked dead bodies.“
„Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.“
May 21, 2017
I love satire. I especially love satire that attacks orientalist patronising portrayals of non-white people.
Sample this:
Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.
God forbid Africans are portrayed as three-dimensional beings! This should be compulsory reading for everyone.
Further relevant reads by the same author available online:
How not to write about Africa in 2012 – a beginner's guide
How to Write About Africa II: The revenge
Sample this:
Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.
God forbid Africans are portrayed as three-dimensional beings! This should be compulsory reading for everyone.
Further relevant reads by the same author available online:
How not to write about Africa in 2012 – a beginner's guide
How to Write About Africa II: The revenge
January 28, 2011
Bright, smart, savage, and in a beautiful mini-book design.
September 29, 2014
Short and sweet! Here I was thinking 'I Dreamed Of Africa' was the most awesome piece of literature Ha!
Read
February 8, 2024Impossible to rate, the nature of collected works spanning diverse topics and genres. Some were masterful and timeless, some won't stick with me. My favourites were ones on African food revival, Sleeping Sickness, circumcision, and western "charity tourism". "How to Write About Africa" is an essay I read probably 10 years ago in university and never forgot. I enjoyed reading more from Wainaina.
His writing was described so well in the afterword - - he has an immortal, "singular, hilarious, worldly, biting, flippant, and meaningful voice."
His writing was described so well in the afterword - - he has an immortal, "singular, hilarious, worldly, biting, flippant, and meaningful voice."
December 2, 2024
binyavanga wainaina’s how to write about africa is a hilarious safari through the cliched jungle of african literature. with a wry smile and a sharp wit, wainaina guides us through a menagerie of tired tropes: the starving child, the wise old sage, and the endless expanse of the savanna.
wainaina tackles stereotypes about africa with effortless humor - africa is one large country; african cuisine consists of monkey brain; a "country" of breathtaking red sunsets but plagued with hiv/aids, war, and famine; a land of naked breasts and rotting bodies. wainaina writes that africa is worth romanticizing but not deeply thinking about. he skewers these stereotypes with such precision that you can almost hear the pop of each punctured cliché.
how could you not love a book with this title that starts, with "some tips: sunsets and starvation are good."
it's a very short read, can be done in half an hour. compromises of three stories. well, the term 'stories' would be inaccurate because it's nonfiction. so, yeah, these three short essays but packs a punch. it forces the reader to ask him/herself. do you know africa, or are you still stereotyping it?
so, the next time you’re tempted to write about africa, remember wainaina’s advice: “some tips: sunsets and starvation are good.”
wainaina tackles stereotypes about africa with effortless humor - africa is one large country; african cuisine consists of monkey brain; a "country" of breathtaking red sunsets but plagued with hiv/aids, war, and famine; a land of naked breasts and rotting bodies. wainaina writes that africa is worth romanticizing but not deeply thinking about. he skewers these stereotypes with such precision that you can almost hear the pop of each punctured cliché.
how could you not love a book with this title that starts, with "some tips: sunsets and starvation are good."
it's a very short read, can be done in half an hour. compromises of three stories. well, the term 'stories' would be inaccurate because it's nonfiction. so, yeah, these three short essays but packs a punch. it forces the reader to ask him/herself. do you know africa, or are you still stereotyping it?
so, the next time you’re tempted to write about africa, remember wainaina’s advice: “some tips: sunsets and starvation are good.”
Read
August 13, 2012Sharp-witted and sarcastic look at how Africa is viewed by the rest of the world. This collection of essays made me laugh at how wrong Eurocentric views of Africa are. A must read for those interested in a satirical look at books written by non-Europeans.
February 21, 2019
I laughed out loud, seriously. Got flashbacks to some uni reads, tbh.
December 23, 2019
A sassy little trio of essays by Wainaina, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year. I laughed out loud at the essay "My Clan KC" - first the Senegalese think Wade is a riot and now my nickname is code for the white Kenyan tribe of Karen! The best way to appreciate this work is probably through notable quotes from each essay:
How to Write About Africa
"African characters should be colorful, exotic, larger than life - but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause... Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well-rounded, complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions, and desires."
My Clan KC
"(d) Seeking Belonging: Return from 'home' where once more discovered irrelevance. Identify strongly with Africa now. Must become part of Clan KC. But how do I begin? Host barbecue? No. Buy airplane, learn how to fly and offer supply drop services in Lokichoggio? Too long a route. Clan KC also needs my patronage to frequent their lodges. Establish presence in their midst. Thank the baobab I'm not American. Would have culturally missed the martial skill of subtlety and stealth. When Clan KC druids blink, I'll be in their midst. I'll practice saying 'Good help is impossible to find these days.' "
The Power of Love
"I have learnt that I, we, are a dollar-a-day people (which is terrible, they say, because a cow in Japan is worth $9 a day). This means that a Japanese cow would be a middle-class Kenyan. Now, a dollar-a-day person cannot know what is good for him - which means that a $9-a-day cow from Japan could very well head a humanitarian NGO in Kenya. Massages are very cheap in Nairobi, so the cow would be comfortable."
I've added Wainaina's full-length memoir to my reading list. It will be interesting to read about his journey toward becoming a writer.
How to Write About Africa
"African characters should be colorful, exotic, larger than life - but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause... Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well-rounded, complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions, and desires."
My Clan KC
"(d) Seeking Belonging: Return from 'home' where once more discovered irrelevance. Identify strongly with Africa now. Must become part of Clan KC. But how do I begin? Host barbecue? No. Buy airplane, learn how to fly and offer supply drop services in Lokichoggio? Too long a route. Clan KC also needs my patronage to frequent their lodges. Establish presence in their midst. Thank the baobab I'm not American. Would have culturally missed the martial skill of subtlety and stealth. When Clan KC druids blink, I'll be in their midst. I'll practice saying 'Good help is impossible to find these days.' "
The Power of Love
"I have learnt that I, we, are a dollar-a-day people (which is terrible, they say, because a cow in Japan is worth $9 a day). This means that a Japanese cow would be a middle-class Kenyan. Now, a dollar-a-day person cannot know what is good for him - which means that a $9-a-day cow from Japan could very well head a humanitarian NGO in Kenya. Massages are very cheap in Nairobi, so the cow would be comfortable."
I've added Wainaina's full-length memoir to my reading list. It will be interesting to read about his journey toward becoming a writer.
August 21, 2024
No one writes about the contradictions of Africa better than Binyavanga Wainaina. The weird thing is that the title essay, which attracted a tone of attention, was actually an e-mail he tossed off and, if he didn't exactly regret, definitely rejected the kind of attention it received. The definitive take on the issues he raises is the brilliant short essay "Who Invented Truth?" The collection, published after Binyavanga's tragic early death, is organized in a slightly weird way, starting with some fairly ephemeral pieces (some of which document his love of f00d--he was an excellent cook). But the places to start would be the semi-autobiographical essay "Discovering Home" and the memorable short story "Ships in High Transit." I always hoped he'd write a novel--it would have been great--but the anthology offers a clear idea of why he ranks in the very top tier of African writers in any genre.
July 9, 2023
satirical, funny, sharp, critical, and passionate—an essential collection centered around development and Africa that keeps you moving from one piece to the next—it felt so engaging that i felt i couldn’t stop consuming, and thinking, and consuming again. the characters of his fiction are complicated and morally gray — his essays typically centered around a moment, a feeling, a concept — his arguments, and creative way of expressing them, will certainly leave an imprint.
December 25, 2024
A collection of essays written by the author. Some were amazing, some I couldn't get into.
The Western portrayal of Africa is a neverending topic. A lot (including Africans) have been fed the worst kind of stereotypes imaginable about this large continent.
I picked this up after reading Africa Is Not a Country by Dipo Faloyin.
The Western portrayal of Africa is a neverending topic. A lot (including Africans) have been fed the worst kind of stereotypes imaginable about this large continent.
I picked this up after reading Africa Is Not a Country by Dipo Faloyin.
October 29, 2023
Missed a lot of this bc I listened on audiobook but generally enjoyed.
December 5, 2024
The last hundred pages of satire on international development and African political commentary saves it.
June 21, 2025
It’s always hard to rate books that would be excellent but for the *minor* thing of rampant misogyny
Read
May 23, 2024I really enjoyed this, and I would love to come back to it in the future. It's a highly recommended read from me, and a win for my "read" books list.
December 21, 2024
only took me two and a half months to read…
October 21, 2024
I frankly struggled to get through this collection of short stories and essays. Binyavanga’s viewpoints are essential, and while I appreciate his wit and sarcasm, I found his short stories much harder to get into than his satirical essays — even though they painted an interesting slice of life in South Africa, Kenya and other countries. His articles made me reflect on my own experiences in Cambodia and Lagos and how one can be well-meaning yet not have your efforts be without fault. Essential reading, but I’ve read other writers whose prose flowed more freely.
Excerpts:
Why, when all odds are against our thriving, do we move with so much resolution? Kenya's economy is on the brink of collapse, but we march on like safari ants, waving our pincers as if we will win. Maybe motion is necessary even when it produces nothing.
Linda peers out of the window, squinting at the afternoon glare. "They don't seem to be malnourished and they don't have ringworms like the people in Ukambani."
Gordon responds, "That's because they haven't yet met enough tourists and the fucking Church and modern life. Just you watch and see how they will be when the World Food Program is done with them. Already people here have adjusted their habits to Food Aid. The young men refuse to take the cattle to the mountains to graze when there is no rain. The old men drink busaa all day in Loruk, and the women wait for food packages. They are finished."
There is something about them that Matano dislikes. A closed-in completeness he has noticed in many liberals. So sure they are right, that they have the moral force. So ignorant of their power, how their angst-ridden treatments and exposés are always such clear pictures of the badness of other men, bold, ugly colors on their silent white background. Neutral. They never see this, but they have turned themselves into the world’s ceteris paribus, the invisible objectivity.
He has seen them all. He has driven Feminist Female Genital Mutilation crusaders, cow-eyed Nature freaks, Cutting-edge Correspondents, Root-Seeking African Americans, Peace Corps workers, and hordes of NGO-folk: foreigners who speak African languages and wear hemp or khaki. Dadaab chic.
“Why don't you read your own magic realism? At least you are able to see it in context. You nice, liberal, overeducated Europeans will look down on trolls and green-eyed witches and pixies, though these represent your pre-Christian realities, but you will have literary orgasms when presented with a Jamaican spirit-child, or a talking water closet in Zululand."
She was in Kenya to teach the people of some peri-urban location how to use a condom. She told me that she talks to groups of men and shows them how a condom can save their lives. I asked her whether there were no nurses or teachers who could do this at maybe a tenth or one hundred thousandth of the cost it would take to keep her in this lovely and rather expensive location, and her eyes melted and she said, "But I care about people. Can't you see people are dying? Something must be done."
"In my gap year." She did not add.
Various royal princes have been here in their gap years, and we have seen them cutting a tree or hugging a baby. One famous actress will adopt all the babies of Africa.
Every so often, on television, we are treated to schools' music-festival poems by six-year-olds, which go something like this:
The Girl Child! Let us all educate
The Girl Child!
The Girl Child!
For our Millennium Development Goals
The Girl Child! The Girl Child!
What you can be sure about in all these love projects is that it is easier for a thirtysomething Scarlett O'Hara-or a Boomtown Rat — than it is for a PhD-wielding, Maasai-speaking, Maasai person to decide who the Maasai will be to the world. Because that is the Power of Love.
The Bible has been translated into 680 African languages. Three million copies are distributed in the continent every year. Though many people talk of "African culture," the truth is that the Bible has been a widely used source of ethical and practical guidance and cultural reference in Africa since the turn of the century.
Sorrowful and caring Leonardo [DiCpario] brings a Canadian company to Kumbayaa, to show how sustainable mining is possible. They save three hundred elephants by investing in satellite phones, laptops, radios, and a team of trackers to save the elephants.
So as not to further corrupt the miner people, the Canadians will extract, mine, and export the blood-red diamonds of Kumbayaa, and start a small fund to help the miner people to learn how to make bags out of tourist bottle-tops and recycled tinned-food containers.
Leonardo will start a community empowerment organization, and take a wife from among them, and advise them to be true to themselves, and not deal with the nobility-polluting people who make world music records out of timeless peoples. Africa, again, has been saved from itself.
Since he died, Kapuscinski has been called "The Master of Modern Journalism," "Translator of the World," "The Greatest Reporter in the World," and "Third World Chronicler."
He is also the guy who came up with my all-time classic lines about Africa:
"Let us remember that fear of revenge is deeply rooted in the African mentality."
"In Africa, drivers avoid traveling at night-darkness unnerves them, they may flatly refuse to drive after sunset."
"Africans eat only once a day, in the evening."
"In Africa, the notion of metaphysical, abstract evil-evil in and of itself-does not exist."
"Africans believe that a mysterious energy circulates through the world."
"In Africa, a cousin on your mother's side is more important than a husband."
It was Kapuscinski, more than any other single writer, who inspired me to write the satirical essay "How to Write About Africa”.
In his review of The Shadow of the Sun for The Times Literary Supplement in 2001, John Ryle pointed out that serious omissions, factual inaccuracies, obvious inventions, and lies appear with great consistency in much of Kapuscinski's writing. He concluded: "His writing about Africa is a variety of latter-day literary colonialism, a kind of gonzo orientalism...conducted in the name of humane concern, that sacrifices truth and accuracy, and homogenizes and misrepresents Africans even as it aspires to speak for them."
When I was a kid, a documentary called Shocking Asia made its way into our cinemas. At the time, Kenya was into censorship. The Six Million Dollar Man was banned because it would make young boys jump off roofs. Kenyans could not kiss on television because it would result in instant national sexual orgies. Yet, for some mysterious reason, which wasn't so mysterious after all, Shocking Asia played for years on end, "due to popular demand."
I went to watch it, all of fourteen, hoping to see a nipple. I left feeling nauseous, vowing never to visit India. Here was a place of mutations and multiple arms and trunks all having twisted sex. And dirty rivers and fetuses and general horribleness. Sodom.
For the school-going Christianized population of Kenya, who loved Reader's Digest and watched The Sound of Music, India was the closest thing to a future hell. In high-school "crusades," we were told that Indians brought demons to Kenya.
A raft of articles has come from concerned people in the West who talk about how China and India are exploiting Africa. But to me it seems that their motives are far more upfront, transparent, and sincere than the patronizing baby talk that issues from our partners with briefcases who want to start fail-safe businesses by getting pity grants.
I recently met somebody who trains Africans in "income-generating activities." She has never run a successful business. She took a course in development somewhere in Europe. She was flying business class to Amsterdam. It's a good gig, if you can get it.
The Senegal of the Mind is especially lovely this time of year. Its capital is Dakar, the Paris of Africa, where the ancient Moorish civilization of Black Africa speaks French to power. The Senegalese of the Mind is also very fond of Beirut (the Paris of the Middle East), as well as Buenos Aires (the Paris of South America) and Paris (the Paris of France).
Excerpts:
Why, when all odds are against our thriving, do we move with so much resolution? Kenya's economy is on the brink of collapse, but we march on like safari ants, waving our pincers as if we will win. Maybe motion is necessary even when it produces nothing.
Linda peers out of the window, squinting at the afternoon glare. "They don't seem to be malnourished and they don't have ringworms like the people in Ukambani."
Gordon responds, "That's because they haven't yet met enough tourists and the fucking Church and modern life. Just you watch and see how they will be when the World Food Program is done with them. Already people here have adjusted their habits to Food Aid. The young men refuse to take the cattle to the mountains to graze when there is no rain. The old men drink busaa all day in Loruk, and the women wait for food packages. They are finished."
There is something about them that Matano dislikes. A closed-in completeness he has noticed in many liberals. So sure they are right, that they have the moral force. So ignorant of their power, how their angst-ridden treatments and exposés are always such clear pictures of the badness of other men, bold, ugly colors on their silent white background. Neutral. They never see this, but they have turned themselves into the world’s ceteris paribus, the invisible objectivity.
He has seen them all. He has driven Feminist Female Genital Mutilation crusaders, cow-eyed Nature freaks, Cutting-edge Correspondents, Root-Seeking African Americans, Peace Corps workers, and hordes of NGO-folk: foreigners who speak African languages and wear hemp or khaki. Dadaab chic.
“Why don't you read your own magic realism? At least you are able to see it in context. You nice, liberal, overeducated Europeans will look down on trolls and green-eyed witches and pixies, though these represent your pre-Christian realities, but you will have literary orgasms when presented with a Jamaican spirit-child, or a talking water closet in Zululand."
She was in Kenya to teach the people of some peri-urban location how to use a condom. She told me that she talks to groups of men and shows them how a condom can save their lives. I asked her whether there were no nurses or teachers who could do this at maybe a tenth or one hundred thousandth of the cost it would take to keep her in this lovely and rather expensive location, and her eyes melted and she said, "But I care about people. Can't you see people are dying? Something must be done."
"In my gap year." She did not add.
Various royal princes have been here in their gap years, and we have seen them cutting a tree or hugging a baby. One famous actress will adopt all the babies of Africa.
Every so often, on television, we are treated to schools' music-festival poems by six-year-olds, which go something like this:
The Girl Child! Let us all educate
The Girl Child!
The Girl Child!
For our Millennium Development Goals
The Girl Child! The Girl Child!
What you can be sure about in all these love projects is that it is easier for a thirtysomething Scarlett O'Hara-or a Boomtown Rat — than it is for a PhD-wielding, Maasai-speaking, Maasai person to decide who the Maasai will be to the world. Because that is the Power of Love.
The Bible has been translated into 680 African languages. Three million copies are distributed in the continent every year. Though many people talk of "African culture," the truth is that the Bible has been a widely used source of ethical and practical guidance and cultural reference in Africa since the turn of the century.
Sorrowful and caring Leonardo [DiCpario] brings a Canadian company to Kumbayaa, to show how sustainable mining is possible. They save three hundred elephants by investing in satellite phones, laptops, radios, and a team of trackers to save the elephants.
So as not to further corrupt the miner people, the Canadians will extract, mine, and export the blood-red diamonds of Kumbayaa, and start a small fund to help the miner people to learn how to make bags out of tourist bottle-tops and recycled tinned-food containers.
Leonardo will start a community empowerment organization, and take a wife from among them, and advise them to be true to themselves, and not deal with the nobility-polluting people who make world music records out of timeless peoples. Africa, again, has been saved from itself.
Since he died, Kapuscinski has been called "The Master of Modern Journalism," "Translator of the World," "The Greatest Reporter in the World," and "Third World Chronicler."
He is also the guy who came up with my all-time classic lines about Africa:
"Let us remember that fear of revenge is deeply rooted in the African mentality."
"In Africa, drivers avoid traveling at night-darkness unnerves them, they may flatly refuse to drive after sunset."
"Africans eat only once a day, in the evening."
"In Africa, the notion of metaphysical, abstract evil-evil in and of itself-does not exist."
"Africans believe that a mysterious energy circulates through the world."
"In Africa, a cousin on your mother's side is more important than a husband."
It was Kapuscinski, more than any other single writer, who inspired me to write the satirical essay "How to Write About Africa”.
In his review of The Shadow of the Sun for The Times Literary Supplement in 2001, John Ryle pointed out that serious omissions, factual inaccuracies, obvious inventions, and lies appear with great consistency in much of Kapuscinski's writing. He concluded: "His writing about Africa is a variety of latter-day literary colonialism, a kind of gonzo orientalism...conducted in the name of humane concern, that sacrifices truth and accuracy, and homogenizes and misrepresents Africans even as it aspires to speak for them."
When I was a kid, a documentary called Shocking Asia made its way into our cinemas. At the time, Kenya was into censorship. The Six Million Dollar Man was banned because it would make young boys jump off roofs. Kenyans could not kiss on television because it would result in instant national sexual orgies. Yet, for some mysterious reason, which wasn't so mysterious after all, Shocking Asia played for years on end, "due to popular demand."
I went to watch it, all of fourteen, hoping to see a nipple. I left feeling nauseous, vowing never to visit India. Here was a place of mutations and multiple arms and trunks all having twisted sex. And dirty rivers and fetuses and general horribleness. Sodom.
For the school-going Christianized population of Kenya, who loved Reader's Digest and watched The Sound of Music, India was the closest thing to a future hell. In high-school "crusades," we were told that Indians brought demons to Kenya.
A raft of articles has come from concerned people in the West who talk about how China and India are exploiting Africa. But to me it seems that their motives are far more upfront, transparent, and sincere than the patronizing baby talk that issues from our partners with briefcases who want to start fail-safe businesses by getting pity grants.
I recently met somebody who trains Africans in "income-generating activities." She has never run a successful business. She took a course in development somewhere in Europe. She was flying business class to Amsterdam. It's a good gig, if you can get it.
The Senegal of the Mind is especially lovely this time of year. Its capital is Dakar, the Paris of Africa, where the ancient Moorish civilization of Black Africa speaks French to power. The Senegalese of the Mind is also very fond of Beirut (the Paris of the Middle East), as well as Buenos Aires (the Paris of South America) and Paris (the Paris of France).
December 28, 2022
This is a sensational tapestry of short stories by the prolific late Kenyan writer. In its passage through time and space, this collection proves why Binyavanga Wainana belongs in the upper echelon of modern literary minds. And, for good reason, as it dives deep into his literary arsenal far beyond his eponymous ‘How to Write About Africa’ essay that first appeared in Granta and catapulted him onto the world stage. Able to conjure up images, smells, and sounds so vividly like few writers can, Binyavanga’s stories take readers on a journey from Dakar to Cape Town, to Nairobi, Lomé, Khartoum and everywhere in between. At times his writing is satirical, crude, and witty; at other junctures it is poignant, reflective, and brutally honest. Those familiar with the continent - and especially the way it’s been portrayed throughout history by (mostly white) Western writers - will find this book refreshing, oppositional and digestible. It is probably less suited for readers unfamiliar with writing from the continent, and writing on Nairobi, in particular, as there are many well-placed cultural references that would be difficult to fully appreciate without sufficient context. Nevertheless, this book is very deserving of a spot on bookshelves, and just might be my favorite read of 2022.
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