Podcast with Caine Prize Contributor Binyavanga Wainaina

Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina – who spends a fair amount of time in our neck of the woods – was interviewed by American Public Media late last year for a piece on their Speaking of Faith series.

He spoke to APM’s Krista Tippett about “the ethics of aid”; they tossed around the question of whether aid from one country to another is always a good thing.

Now the uncut, unedited interview has surfaced as a podcast, which, if you get past the first four minutes or so, transforms from a fumbly arranging of interviewer and interviewee and seats and microphones and test-the-microphones chitchat (which includes the weighty subject of what Wainaina had for breakfast) into an incisive and exercising gloss of north-south relations – and a glimpse into the violence that marred Kenya’s recent elections.

Here’s the podcast; and see below for a link to the transcript:

 

 Podcast with Binyavanga Wainaina [100:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Transcript: The Ethics of Aid: One Kenyan’s Perspective

Krista Tippett, host: I’m Krista Tippett. Today, “The Ethics of Aid: One Kenyan’s Perspective.” We explore a challenging view of the morality and efficacy of Western approaches to Africa’s problems.

Mr. Binyavanga Wainaina: A lot of people arrive in Africa to assume that it’s a blank empty space and their goodwill and desire and guilt will fix it. And that to me is not any different from the first people who arrived and colonized us. This power, this power to help, is just about as dangerous as hard power, because very often it arrives with a kind of zeal that is assuming ‘I will do it. I will solve it for you. I will fix it for you,’ and it rides roughshod over your own best efforts.

• Read the complete transcript

Book details

• Work in Progress and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Fiction 2009 by The Caine Prize For African Writing
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781770097506
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• Jambula Tree and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 8th Annual Collection by Caine Prize
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781904456735
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Photo courtesy PEN American Center

Work in Progress and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Fiction Collection 2009

Now in its 10th year, the Caine Prize presents another unmissable opportunity to tune in to what is going on in African fiction. Work in Progress and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Fiction 2009 brings together the shortlist for the 2009 award as well as stories written at the Caine Prize writers’ workshop held near Accra, Ghana – in all, 16 short stories that make up some of the best new writing from across the continent.

The 2009 shortlisted authors were:

Mamle Kabu [Ghana] for “The end of Skill”
Parselelo Kantai [Kenya] for “You Wreck Her”
Alistair Morgan [South Africa] for “Icebergs”
EC Osondu [Nigeria] for “Waiting”
Mukoma wa Ngugi [Kenya] for “How Kamau wa Mwangi Escaped into Exile”

EC Osondu won the £10 000 award.

Last year’s winner, Henrietta Rose-Innes, is one of 11 other writers featured in this remarkable collection, which showcases the cultural relevance of the short story and up-and-coming talent in equal measure. Her story, Work in Progress, provides the title for the collection. See Rose-Innes’ own posts on the collection.

Book details

• Work in Progress and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Fiction 2009
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781770097506
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!