Cape literary pick: December 2 2011
“Now I am ‘that guy’, the conscience of Africa: I will admonish you and give you absolution — If I was smart, I would have waited a few years and made an iPhone app: a little satirical story about how to write about Africa every day, interactive and adaptable, for 99 cents. Fuck Granta — thanks, Granta,” wrote Binyavanga Wainaina in How to Write About Africa II: The Revenge, a follow-up to his much-quoted satirical piece against narrow Western perspectives on African literature, published in Granta magazine in 2005.
Fortunately Wainaina dropped the app idea and began working on a memoir instead. The result is One Day I Will Write About This Place, recently published by Granta Books. Spanning Wainaina’s middle-class upbringing in Kenya, his failed attempt to study in South Africa, a moving family reunion in Uganda and his travels around Kenya, it is a small masterpiece of heart and guts—and a striking intelligence.
Chimurenga magazine is hosting the Cape Town launch, at which Wainaina will read from his book, followed by a discussion session with the director of the Centre for African Studies, Harry Garuba.
Save Church, Long Street, Cape Town, on December 2 at 6.30pm. Entrance is free. Tel: 021 4224168. Website: www.chimurenga.co.za.
