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How to write about africa5/22/2023 ![]() ![]() 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’. Kenyan literary critic Binyavanga Wainaina offers some handy tips for all would-be saviours of Africa.Īlways use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. ![]()
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