Stuff White Colonialists Like
I’ve been reading so much Stuff White People Like that I was startled to recognize a similar tone of satire on a decidedly more serious topic:
Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.
["How to Write About Africa" via Granta]
This is from an essay “How to Write About Africa” by Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina, which I discovered from reading this piece on Chinua Achebe in the New Yorker. Like with all good satire, you’re not sure whether you should laugh or cry:
Describe, in detail, naked breasts (young, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or enhanced genitals. Or any kind of genitals. And dead bodies. Or, better, naked dead bodies. And especially rotting naked dead bodies.
Give the essay a read. It’ll be funny, and at least twice as educational as certain humor blogs that we all know and love.
That was a terrific article! I love satirical pieces that link trends in literature to attitudes in pop culture, or vice versa. In this sense it reminded me of this nyt article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/books/review/Itzkoff-t.html. It’s from back in the day when Giuliani, Huckabee, and Edwards were still in the prez race, and given your love of the new york times you’ve probably already read it, but if you haven’t, I bet you’ll get a kick out of it.
Someone should take the Granta article and make a computer program that will calculate how successful a given Africa book (or short story or something) will be based on Wainaina’s criteria. Example:
“Dead body” – 1 point
“Naked dead body” – 3 points
“Rotting naked dead body” – 10 points
Add all the points up and compare it to some benchmark, like a Chinua Achebe book.
Comment by cj — May 29, 2008 @ 3:20 pm