Mama Hope, a group that works with local African organizations “to connect them with the resources required to transform their own communities,” has released a great promo featuring four young men who are tired of Hollywood’s African stereotypes. Their complaints are reminiscent of those enumerated in Binyavanga Wainaina’s classic essay “How to Write about Africa,” and also in Laura Seay’s great article from last week, “How Not to Write About Africa.”
How and How Not to View Africa
Why Reading
“Unlike, say, skimming a page of headlines, reading a book (of any genre) forces your brain to think critically and make connections from one chapter to another, and to the outside world. When you make connections, so does your brain, literally forging new pathways between regions in all four lobes and both hemispheres. Over time, these neural networks can promote quicker thinking and may provide a greater defense against the worst effects of cognitive decay.” Readers Digest compiles the latest research about why you should read (via Book Riot).
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“My school was on fire.”
Recommended Reading: Everything being written by Delaney Nolan – the most recent example of which being “I Was a Teenage Arsonist.”
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Mrs. Rowling
J.K. Rowling is one of the most successful writers in the world, but the one person she wanted to see her success never got to — her mother. “She never knew about Harry Potter – I started writing it six months before she died, so that is painful. I wish she’d known,” she said during an interview with BBC Radio 4. She discussed her mother’s death, multiple sclerosis, rugby, and more when she guest edited an edition of “Woman’s Hour.”
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Levin and Vronsky Are Dead
November 16th marks the release of the new film version of Anna Karenina (written by Tom Stoppard), which you can watch the trailer for here. It might also be a good time to brush up on the novel itself.
Unlocking Agrippa
In 1992, William Gibson published Agrippa, a poem coded on a floppy disk such that after one reading it would destroy itself forever. Quinn DuPont, a PhD student studying cryptography, built an emulation of the self-destructing poem and has a challenge to cyberpunks and cryptographers: be the first person to crack the poem’s code and win a copy of every one of Gibson’s books ever published.
Mislabeled
Can writers transcend race? LaTanya McQueen argues that labeling fiction as minority gets in the way of the story at The Missouri Review blog. Also, see our essay on the racial and gender barriers in the publishing industry.
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There is also a great site that targets African youth. It covers the latest music, film, arts, and pop culture.
http://www.thisisafrica.me/
–dejiridoo