Know your author: Binyavanga Wainana

and The Sunday Times.

In 2001, Wainaina was distinguished with the renowned Caine Prize for African Literature, after his short story Discovering Home had been published in the Internet magazine G21Net.

The story traces a trip the author took from his home in South Africa to his birthplace in Kenya and on to Uganda, where his grandparents were living and planning to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.

A scenic and cultural portrait emerges from Wainaina’s story, marked by his lively descriptions and satirical humour, and alternately reflective passages, which presents the three African countries as colourful and diverse. The heterogeneous population fluctuates between tradition and modernity, and is carried by a hopeful spirit despite the colonial past and current political situation.

The exotic stereotypes in particular fail to fit: “Whenever I read something by some white writer who stopped by Kenya, I am astounded by the amount of game that appears for breakfast at their patios and the snakes that drop into the baths and the lions that terrorise their calves. I have seen one snake in my life. I don’t know anybody who has ever been bitten by one’’.

Also in the satirical articles How to Write About Africa and Warum es nervt, wie alle Afrika helfen wollen« (t: Why it’s annoying that everybody wants to help Africa), published in the British magazine Granta and in the German Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch, Wainaina mocks clichés and prejudices about Africa. In contrast, the author conveys a picture of strong and self-assured, diverse African identities.

In an article for National Geographic he portrays the peculiarities of life in the Kenyan metropolis of Nairobi, showing its development in the last decade, using humour and displaying intimate knowledge.

He founded the literary magazine kwani? in 2003, which has established itself as a stimulating platform for Kenyan and African creativity.
In the same year he also received an award by the Kenya Publishers’ Association in recognition of his services to Kenyan literature.

In 2007, he declined the award Young Global Leader given by the World Economic Forum.
Wainaina was a scholarship holder at the University of East Anglia in Norwich and Writer-in-Residence at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

The publications he writes for include The EastAfrican, The New Yorker, and The Guardian.
The author lives in Nairobi.