One of the panellists, in passing, accused the new writers of “performing Africa” for the world. I was at a Caine prize seminar a few years back and the discussion was on the state of the new fiction coming out of Africa. Nigerian author Helon Habila (whose Waiting for an Angel I reviewed in 2013) in his review of We Need New Names has suggested that there is a current trend of ‘poverty-porn’ writing coming out of Africa: I did not like this book, but it was not until after I had written most of my review and went looking for a positive one to balance mine, that I discovered that it’s been the subject of an interesting debate. Since there are now a zillion reviews out there already, I should keep this brief, but this book bothers me… I meant to read it then but other things got in the way. I know, I know, everybody else read NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names ages ago when it was shortlisted for the Booker and won a swag of awards in 2013.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |