How to Write About Africa

Collected Works

By: Binyavanga Wainaina, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - introduction, Achal Prabhala - editor

Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman, Yinka Ladeinde

From one of Africa’s most influential and eloquent essayists, a posthumous collection that highlights his biting satire and subversive wisdom on topics from travel to cultural identity to sexuality

“A fierce literary talent . . . [Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliché.”—The Guardian

“Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. . . . Africa is to be pitied, worshipped, or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.”

Binyavanga Wainaina was a pioneering voice in African literature, an award-winning memoirist and essayist remembered as one of the greatest chroniclers of contemporary African life. This groundbreaking collection brings together, for the first time, Wainaina’s pioneering writing on the African continent, including many of his most critically acclaimed pieces, such as the viral satirical sensation “How to Write About Africa.” Working fearlessly across a range of topics—from politics to international aid, cultural heritage, and redefined sexuality—he describes the modern world with sensual, emotional, and psychological detail, giving us a full-color view of his home country and continent. These works present the portrait of a giant in African literature who left a tremendous legacy.

Critic reviews

“Binyavanga Wainaina was many things in his short, frenetic life: memoirist and roving essayist, trailblazing editor and publisher, agitator and activist. . . . Wainaina’s language [is] barbed, playful, inventive . . . his omnivorous brilliance matched by ambition and vision on a continental scale.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)

“It’s beginning to seem like Binyavanga Wainaina’s satirical essay ‘How to Write About Africa’ might be, after the Bible, the most read English-language text on the African continent. . . . This collection of his writing—the first to be published since he died—makes it difficult not to feel the scale of [his] loss. . . . A fierce literary talent . . . [Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliché.”—The Guardian

“Brilliant . . . incisive . . . each [essay] showcasing Wainaina’s sharp wit and penetrating analysis.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Unflagging in his generosity, unflinching and direct in his criticism, [Wainaina] produced work in his short life that will have longer-lasting impact than those whose time here is twice as long.”—Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, OBE, chair of the Caine Prize for African Writing