Comments | 50books_poc: How to Write About Africa

sanguinity in 50books_poc

How to Write About Africa

Apr 03, 2009 10:45

(In addition to the regular 50 books challenge, I'm going to do 50 short-works, too. Not because I'm an overachiever -- which would be a fair charge -- but because I SUCK at finishing anthologies, yet I still want to point in awe at some of the amazing pieces in said anthologies-I-never-finish-reading. Also, sometimes I run across amazing stuff in ( Read more... )

(delicious), creative nonfic, african writers, kenya, short-works

Comments 12

erinlin April 3 2009, 17:52:30 UTC

Dear God the whole treating Africa like it was one country thing drives me right up the wall.

evilprodigy April 3 2009, 18:16:34 UTC

Oh, this is scathing and brilliant. Thanks so much for the link.

poeticalpanther April 3 2009, 20:21:20 UTC

OMG that's wonderful. Thank you. Makes me want to write a book set in Africa just to try and get it right. :)

bibliofile April 3 2009, 20:54:48 UTC

I have often liked what Granta publishes (but that's a different post).

deifire April 3 2009, 22:02:28 UTC

Love it!

Though I'm now going to take a moment to mourn all the minutes of my life I've wasting reading, or at least starting to read, that book.

sanguinity April 3 2009, 23:12:21 UTC

Personally, it made me feel much better about mostly never having been able to finish that book -- all the hours I didn't waste! ;-)

influencethis April 4 2009, 00:12:53 UTC

Could you clarify which book you mean? I'm trying to pick up text clues but I'm still confused, and if it's a horrible book I'd like to avoid it.

sanguinity April 8 2009, 17:34:58 UTC

I can't speak for deifire, nor what titles s/he was thinking of, but this isn't so much about a specific title as it is about most popular books about Africa. Heart of Darkness, Out of Africa. Anything that hits the top of the NYT list probably reads like this, as well as many/most magazine articles, many films, etc.