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:
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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.
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
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Now in its 10th year, the Caine Prize presents another unmissable opportunity to tune in to what is going on in African fiction. 




