Vorspeisenplatte

Dies ist wieder eine sehr bereichernde Granta-Ausgabe: Afrika aus afrikanischer Sicht. Wie immer eine Mischung aus Erzählungen, Fiktion, Satire, einer Fotostrecke. Unbedingt zu lesen und netterweise auch schon online: Binyavanga Wainainas „How to write about Africa. Some tips: sunsets and starvation are good“. Wainaina lebt in Nairobi und ist Gründer der Literaturzeitschrift Kwani?.

Er kennt sich also aus und empfiehlt unter anderem:

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.
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Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.
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Among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless. She can have no past, no history; such diversions ruin the dramatic moment. Moans are good.
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Readers will be put off if you don’t mention the light in Africa. And sunsets, the African sunset is a must. It is always big and red. There is always a big sky. Wide empty spaces and game are critical—Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces.

Ich fürchte, ich werde nie mehr einen handelsüblichen deutschen Magazinartikel über ein afrikanisches Thema lesen können, ohne breit zu grinsen. Hier der ganze Text.