Just finished Binyavanga Wainaina’s memoir, and it was like a draught of fresh water for the mind, so clever and thoughtful and funny. A particular relief after the last great Kenyan novel I read. I had worried rather than I was losing the ability to concentrate and enjoy anything other than the most straightforward prose, but Wainaina’s book was no more straightforward. This was excellent, though and full of sharpness. Very interesting construction, so that I didn’t even realise it was a memoir until I googled it and learned that it is what it was, and that he’d died young a few years ago. A great loss. Also I realised I’d read his famous essay in Granta when it came out without connecting it with this book.
I’ve moved on to Declan Walsh’s recent book about Pakistan. It’s funny, he is writing about a Pakistan that I think no longer exists in some ways. Or at least I no longer recognise it. A lot has changed since he, and I, lived there.