How to Write About Africa

An uncompromising commentator . . . [Binyavanga Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliché

Nesrine Malik, Guardian

Hilarious, worldly, biting, flippant, and meaningful

Achal Prabhala, Africa is a Country

[A] Kenyan literary icon . . . [Binyavanga Wainaina's] work continues to challenge stereotypes and prejudices about Africa

The Stream

A trail-blazing Kenyan legend

Al Jazeera

[Binyavanga Wainaina's] writing dances beyond the borders of language, lineage, genre, containment . . . [His] imagination hops, skips and jumps, in that space of infinite possibilities and worlds waiting to be made and unmade

Bubblegum Club

[A] barrier-shattering presence in African literature

Washington Post

Unflagging in his generosity, unflinching and direct in his criticism, [Binyavanga] produced work in his short life that will have impact longer lasting than those whose time here is twice as long

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey

[A] Kenyan writer and LGBT activist who made a revolutionary impact on literature from and about the African continent

Margaret Busby, Guardian

Barbed, playful, inventive . . . African literature would never be the same . . . An outsize figure on the literary landscape, his omnivorous brilliance matched by ambition and vision on a continental scale

Anderson Tepper, New York Times

Everything that made Binyavanga so great was there on the page - his righteous passion, his biting wit, his eye for hypocrisy, his arch turn of phrase

Matt Weiland

Cutting and incisive, witty and confrontational, and deeply revealing

Remy Ngamjie

Wainaina's sharp wit and penetrating analysis . . . shows off his talent for withering satire

Publishers Weekly

[An] award-winning Kenyan writer whose humorous, incisive books and essays explored themes of post-colonialism, gender and sexual identity . . . with wit and humour he took apart the paternalism of certain writers who talk of Africa as one country

Independent

A collection of brilliant writing - essays, stories, journalism, and even recipes. I admire Wainaina's humour, flamboyance and intelligence and the way he skewers the usual stereotypes about Africa

Deborah Levy, Times

He was an intellectual . . . Someone who could have become the Edward Said of Africa or the James Baldwin of our time

Leila Aboulela

Both an ode and an introduction to one of the continent's most inimitable literary geniuses

Edith Amoafoa-Smart, Africa is a Country

Provocative . . . A lively selection of work that well represents the scope of this fine author

Kirkus

How to Write About Africa gathers vivid, powerful essays and fiction by the late Kenyan icon

Open Country

Seductive and appetising . . . [Wainaina’s] work is as relevant as ever [and his] observations remain sharp throughout

The New Yorker

Immensely powerful . . . How to Write about Africa set the tone for a weary scepticism about the way non-Africans behave or speak when they arrive on the continent

London Review of Books

[A] standup-and-cheer coming-of-age memoir

New York Times Book Review on One Day I Will Write About This Place

Glimmering, strobe-lit language . . . a complex, cosmopolitan African experience too rarely depicted in books

Teju Cole, author of Open City, on One Day I Will Write About This Place