HOW TO WRITE ABOUT AFRICA

A generous collection of writing by the Kenyan journalist and essayist.

Originally from Nakuru, of Kikuyu descent, Wainaina (1971-2019) spent his young adult years in South Africa, where he attended university as the country was on the verge of apartheid. In Cape Town, he worked as a food and travel writer. Back in Nairobi, he won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002 for his essay “Discovering Home”—“When I left, I was relieved that I had escaped the burdens and guilts of being in Kenya, of facing my roots, and repudiating them. Here I am, looking for them again”—and he founded the influential Kwani? (“So what?”) literary magazine. The author writes extensively about the changing nature of Kenya and the new elite who prefer to send their children to English schools as well as the pull of the old traditional ways. As a young gay writer, he was burdened by the responsibility to represent his young country and its many tribes: “I can’t be, nor do I want to be, Mr. AllPanAfrica when I write.” In the titular, satirical piece, which was published in Granta in 2005 and became widely reissued, he explores the many entrenched stereotypes about the African continent. “In your text,” he writes, “treat Africa as if it was 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. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, nine hun­dred million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book.” His own provocative work, in contrast, aims to be as specific as possible. The book includes an introduction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

A lively selection of work that well represents the scope of this fine author.