Granta 92: The View From Africa (Granta: The Magazine Of New Writing S.)

Contents Include: * The Many Voices of Africa - John Ryle (editor) * The Master - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie * The War of the Ears - Moses Isegawa * Passport Control - Kwame Dawes * Gifted - Segun Afolabi * How to Write About Africa - Binyavanga Wainaina * The Ogiek - Geert Van Kesteren * Joburg - Ivan Vladislavic * Legacies - Adewale Maja-Pearce * Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black - Nadine Gordimer * The Witch's Dog - Helon Habila * Policeman to the World - Daniel Bergner * The Black Albums - Santu Mofokeng * We Love China - Lindsey Hilsum * Angediluvian - John Biguenet

GRANTA deserves applause for bringing us this collection of current African thinking, writing and dreaming. John Ryle, in his introduction "The Many Voices of Africa", reflects on the richness of language and cultural diversity. His final comment that Africa is part of everybody's life - whether we know it or not - is worth remembering when we are discussing the challenges and opportunities that face this continent. The book contains new fiction or chapters of forthcoming books, memoirs, photo essays and much more. There is the story of young Ugwu, whose Master is more like a teacher, giving the "houseboy" a chance in life (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). The daily dangers in rural Uganda are captured in The War of the Ears (Moses Isegawa). Here, Mother and son are both teachers trying to keep the school running despite threats from `child soldiers' to destroy it all. Passport Control (Kwame Dawes) reflects the difficulties in being of dual nationalities. Home is an elusive concept. Adewale Maja-Pearce takes up a similar aspect in his personal account. Binyavanga Wainaina challenges how prejudice influences what people write about Africa and how they describe Africans, taking a highly mocking tone. Daniel Bergner records the work of Mark Kroeker, UN police commissioner in Liberia. He follows Kroeker on some of his dangerous missions trying to instil in his local police recruits the moral and ethics of policing despite the lawlessness around them. Finally, and not least Geert van Kesteren captures the life of the Ogiek people, eking out a living in the Mau forest in Kenya, in a brief photo essay. All pieces in this collection are worth reading with care and attention to detail. They represent some of the many voices in Africa who combine the intimacy of place and time with the bigger issues of survival, identity, past, present and future. [Friederike Knabe]