How to Write About Africa

Reviews / Votes

[A] Kenyan writer and LGBT activist who made a revolutionary impact on literature from and about the African continent -- Margaret Busby * Guardian * Barbed, playful, inventive . . . African literature would never be the same . . . An outsize figure on the literary landscape, his omnivorous brilliance matched by ambition and vision on a continental scale -- Anderson Tepper * The New York Times * A collection of brilliant writing - essays, stories, journalism, and even recipes. I admire Wainaina's humour, flamboyance and intelligence and the way he skewers the usual stereotypes about Africa -- Deborah Levy * Times * [An] award-winning Kenyan writer whose humorous, incisive books and essays explored themes of post-colonialism, gender and sexual identity . . . with wit and humour he took apart the paternalism of certain writers who talk of Africa as one country * Independent * He was an intellectual . . . Someone who could have become the Edward Said of Africa or the James Baldwin of our time -- Leila Aboulela An uncompromising commentator . . . [Binyavanga Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliche -- Nesrine Malik * Guardian * [A] barrier-shattering presence in African literature * Washington Post * Unflagging in his generosity, unflinching and direct in his criticism, [Binyavanga] produced work in his short life that will have impact longer lasting than those whose time here is twice as long -- Ellah Wakatama Allfrey A trail-blazing Kenyan legend * Al Jazeera * Hilarious, worldly, biting, flippant, and meaningful -- Achal Prabhala * Africa is a Country * [A] Kenyan literary icon . . . [Binyavanga Wainaina's] work continues to challenge stereotypes and prejudices about Africa * The Stream * [Binyavanga Wainaina's] writing dances beyond the borders of language, lineage, genre, containment . . . [His] imagination hops, skips and jumps, in that space of infinite possibilities and worlds waiting to be made and unmade * Bubblegum Club * Everything that made Binyavanga so great was there on the page - his righteous passion, his biting wit, his eye for hypocrisy, his arch turn of phrase -- Matt Weiland Cutting and incisive, witty and confrontational, and deeply revealing -- Remy Ngamjie Wainaina's sharp wit and penetrating analysis . . . shows off his talent for withering satire * Publishers Weekly * Both an ode and an introduction to one of the continent's most inimitable literary geniuses -- Edith Amoafoa-Smart * Africa is a Country * Provocative . . . A lively selection of work that well represents the scope of this fine author * Kirkus * How to Write About Africa gathers vivid, powerful essays and fiction by the late Kenyan icon * Open Country * Glimmering, strobe-lit language . . . a complex, cosmopolitan African experience too rarely depicted in books -- Teju Cole, author of Open City, on One Day I Will Write About This Place [A] standup-and-cheer coming-of-age memoir * New York Times Book Review on One Day I Will Write About This Place *