Several years ago, Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina (in a sarcastic essay “How to Write About Africa” published in the British literary magazine Granta) criticized the safari reportage by Westerners when writing Africa. Are Africans writing any different asks Fatin Abbas in a review of two new books: a collection of short stories Say You’re One of Them, by Nigerian Uwem Akpan, and The Translator, by Sudanese Daoud Hari.
By Abbas’s standards these books suffer from the same problems. Not least because Hari’s book is not even written by other people (“ghostwriters”) and repeats Western stereotypes, while Arabs and Akpan recycles cliches. Excerpt:
Despite the perils Hari faced as a guide, the contacts he developed with Western NGO workers and globe-trotting journalists … helped save his life on more than one occasion [and] were also instrumental in the publication of The Translator. The book was written “with” Dennis Michael Burke and Megan McKenna–the former a professional writer and the latter an American NGO worker Hari met in Chad–over the course of several days of tape-recorded interviews on the couch of Hari’s literary agent, Gail Ross.
And this in the conclusion:
In what appears to be a coincidence, the covers of Hari’s and Akpan’s books are strikingly similar. The photograph on the jacket of Say You’re One of Them frames a child running, feet bare, dress flying, down a red dirt road, back to the viewer. Hari’s cover depicts a tall man walking away from the camera into the scrubby African bush, head bent, his flowing jallabiya gown trailing behind him. In both photographs the subjects’ faces remain hidden, despite the glaring sunlight, as they retreat into the distance.
Sean. Allelujah. I like this. Have you read meanwhile Richard Dowden’s book on Africa? Hailed by Chinua Achebe no less. I still have a problem with the idea that one can write a book “about Africa”. I still don’t get this. Would anyone write a book called “EUROPE” and talk about their 50 years wandering as a foreign correspondent about Europe? Maybe they would. But first, I need to read Dowden’s text. He’s a good man. I like him. It’s the title and the sycophantic reviews (here in the UK anyway) that have got on my nerves…
Moreover, Westerners love flagellation specially coming from former colonies (am sure Fanon wrote this somewhere). Binj’s rant was published in Granta, the Bible of safari writing.
This is tired.
Chief Priest, you know I am tired.
Lara: I know you know this, but Achebe’s endorsement means nothing. Even he can get it wrong. Dowden’s a bit like Naomi Klein here in the US. They write about everything and anything with no depth and lots of factual and other errors.