Editor’s word: Kenyan creator Binyavanga Wainaina died after infection on Tuesday, May 22. Perhaps his most acclaimed work becomes the satiric essay “How To Write About Africa,” which we’re reprinting.
Always use Africa, ‘Darkness, ‘ or ‘Safari’ for your identity. Subtitles may encompass the phrases ‘Zanzibar,’ ‘Masai,’ ‘Zulu,’ ‘Zambezi,’ ‘Congo,’ ‘Nile,’ ‘Big,’ ‘Sky,’ ‘Shadow,’ ‘Drum,’ ‘Sun,’ or ‘Bygone.’ Also beneficial are phrases that include ‘Guerrillas,’ ‘Timeless,’ ‘Primordial,’ and ‘Tribal.’ Note that the ‘People’ method is Africans who are not black, even as ‘The People’ approach black Africans.
Never have a photo of a properly adjusted African on the quilt of your book or in it unless that African has received the Nobel Prize. An AK-forty-seven, distinguished ribs, naked breasts: use those. If you need to include an African, ensure you get one in Masai, Zulu, or Dogon dress.
In your text, deal with Africa as though it had been one United States of America. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands, massive herds of animals, and tall, skinny individuals starving. Or it’s miles hot and steamy with concise individuals who devour primates. Don’t get slowed down by particular descriptions. Africa is huge: fifty-four international locations, 900 million folks too busy ravenous, losing lives, warring, and emigrating to study your book. The continent has deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs, and many others. Still, your reader does not care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic, evocative, and unparticular.
Make sure you display how Africans have track and rhythm deep in their souls and consume things no other people devour. Do not mention rice, pork, and wheat; monkey brain is an African delicacy of choice, combined with goat, snake, worms, grubs, and all game meat. Make certain you display that you can consume such food without flinching and describe the way you learn how to experience it—because you care.
Taboo subjects: everyday domestic scenes, love between Africans (except a loss of life is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, point out of school-going kids who aren’t laid low with yaws or Ebola fever, or female genital mutilation.
Throughout the ebook, adopt a sotto voice, conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-anticipated-so-an awful lot tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and point out close to the beginning how much you love Africa, the way you fell in love with the region, and cannot stay without her. Africa is the handiest continent you may love — take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her heat virgin forests. If you’re a girl, treat Africa as a man wearing a bush jacket and disappearing into the sundown. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped, or ruled. Whichever angle you take, depart the sturdy impact that Africa is doomed without your intervention and critical ebook.
Your African characters may include naked warriors, dependable servants, diviners and seers, and ancient smart guys dwelling in hermitic splendor. Or corrupt politicians, inept polygamous travel guides, and prostitutes you have slept with. The Loyal Servant continually behaves like a seven-12 months-vintage and needs a firm hand; he is afraid of snakes, properly with kids, and constantly relates to you in his complicated home dramas. The Ancient Wise Man usually comes from a noble tribe (now not the money-grubbing tribes like the Gikuyu, the Igbo, or the Shona).
He has rheumy eyes and is close to the Earth. Modern African is a fat man who steals and works inside the visa office, refusing to offer painting permits to qualified Westerners who honestly care about Africa. He is an enemy of development, constantly using his government process to make it hard for pragmatic and proper-hearted ex-pats to install NGOs or Legal Conservation Areas. Or he is an Oxford-knowledgeable intellectual who became a serial-killing politician in a Savile Row match. He is a cannibal who likes Cristal champagne, and his mother is a rich witch-medical doctor who surely runs the United States.
Among your characters, you should always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp almost bare and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flown on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She needs to look thoroughly helpless. She can have no history beyond that; such diversions damage the dramatic second. Moans are top. She must not say anything about herself in the dialogue besides speaking of her (unspeakable) suffering. Also, include a warm and motherly woman who has a rolling chuckle and worries about your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her children are all antisocial. These characters must buzz around your fundamental hero, making him look accurate. Your hero can educate, bathe, and feed them; he contains many babies and has seen Death. Your hero is you (if reportage) or a lovely, tragic worldwide movie star/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).
