Binyavanga Wainaina

Writing about Africa

Based in Nairobi, Binyavanga Wainaina is currently one of Granta’s star writers, a prominence he would thoroughly deserve if only for his journalism, which shows a mastery of that rarest quality, sardonic nuance. He is already celebrated for his short stories but I am glad to see that he finds the article an equally rewarding form. The typical bad article being written for the broadsheets, glossies and current affairs magazines today is about Africa. Wainaina, a disgusted inside observer of all the speciously concerned hack’s standard tricks, does an excellent job of condensing the lot of them into one devastating grab-bag of current clichés of the subject. If his eagerly awaited memoirs are as funny as this, he will set new standards.

Read Binyavanga Wainaina's article How to write about Africa.