With phrases like “Always use the words ‘Africa’ ‘safari’ or ‘Darkness’ in your title” Binyavanga has a way of making you see these phrases around you and open your eyes to the fact that we do play a huge role in perpetrating the falsehood that Africa is but a land of blubbering fools who speak either with clicks, in Swahili or both. The story How to Write about Africa is basically a compilation of every single cliché that has been used (abused?) by writers when writing articles and poems about Africa. Nairobi is crawling with $5 a day, 25 year old backpackers who came and loved and compassioned and are now beneficiaries of $5,000 a month consulting for the United Nations…while masters students from Kenya are selling fruit by the side of the road for a dollar a day, and live in the Kibera slum the only place where rent is cheap The three stories How to Write about Africa, My Clan KC and The Power of Love Tell the story of several misconceptions about Africa and how the people who are meant to be helping to solve this situation are really not helping and in fact are even propagating the issue to a whole new level. The authors (the story in the middle is by an anonymous author) of the short stories featured in this book use sarcasm eloquently to show how writers are failing Africa by putting the wrong picture out there and hence the readers in the west end up with images of a savage wasteland plagued by disease poverty and corrupt leaders. I must kick this off by saying if you absolutely don’t understand the basic principles of the theory of sarcasm then don’t read this book, and as an after thought this review as well.

The book by the founding editor of Kwani is a compilation of 3 satirical stories that show you Kenya from a serious but hilarious perspective.

From page 5 all the way through to page 48 you will just have a smile on your face and occasionally it will burst, at those moments you will be laughing.

Everybody likes a good laugh right? I mean, what would the world be without a couple of chuckles in between a couple of smiles to make the frowning moments seem worth it? How To Write about Africa (it actually isn’t a self help book for struggling writers, who would have thought?) is one of those moments.

How to write about africa wainaina