How to Write About Africa: Collected Works
by Binyavanga Wainaina
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"Binyavanga Wainaina was a pioneering voice in African literature, an award-winning memoirist and essayist, and a gatherer of literary communities. Before his tragic death in 2019 at the age of forty-seven, he won the Caine Prize for African Writing and was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. His wildly popular essay "How to Write About Africa," an incisive and unapologetic piece that exposed the harmfully racist ways Western media depicts Africa, with implicit bias and show more subjective clichés, changed the game for African writers and helped set the stage for a new generation of authors, from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Yaa Gyasi. When Wainaina published a "lost chapter" of his 2011 memoir as an essay called "I Am a Homosexual, Mum," which imagines coming out to his mother, he became a voice for the queer, African community as well, adding a new layer to how African sexuality is perceived"-- show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A posthumous collection of Binyavanga Wainaina’s essays.
HOW TO WRITE ABOUT AFRICA was an excellent collection of essays. Often satirical and always interesting, I’m glad to have experienced Africa through the author’s eyes rather than the inauthentic portrayals of Western writers. I enjoyed that there was diversity among the essay topics while still having an overall connection throughout.
HOW TO WRITE ABOUT AFRICA was an entertaining and thought-provoking book that I’d recommend.
Thank you to One World for the giveaway copy.
HOW TO WRITE ABOUT AFRICA was an excellent collection of essays. Often satirical and always interesting, I’m glad to have experienced Africa through the author’s eyes rather than the inauthentic portrayals of Western writers. I enjoyed that there was diversity among the essay topics while still having an overall connection throughout.
HOW TO WRITE ABOUT AFRICA was an entertaining and thought-provoking book that I’d recommend.
Thank you to One World for the giveaway copy.
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Not the NYT list of top 100 21st century books
100 works; 6 members
Author Information
12+ Works 478 Members
Kenneth Binyavanga Wainaina was born in Nakuru, Kenya on January 18, 1971. He was an author, publisher, journalist, and commentator. He won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002 and went on to establish the literary magazine Kwani? In 2005, he published an essay entitled How to Write About Africa in the British literary journal Granta. His show more memoir, One Day I Will Write About This Place, was published in 2011. In 2014, he published an essay entitled I am a Homosexual, Mum. On World AIDS Day in 2016, he announced that he was H.I.V. positive. He died after a short illness on May 21, 2019 at the age of 48. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Members
- 65
- Popularity
- 480,572
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 3
