binyavanga wainaina how to write about africa

If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. Africa is the only continent you can love-take advantage of this. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can’t live without her. Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone.

Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it-because you care. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat monkey-brain is an African’s cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat.

The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize.

Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’.

Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky’, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title.

Binyavanga wainaina how to write about africa