AfricaIs aCountry

The Stories We Tell About Africa

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

The Stories We Tell About Africa

By
Sonja Sugira

Chris Abani's musings on telling African stories gets at just about everything Sonja thinks about as she encounters "Africa" every day, and then attempt to write about it.

A relief from the cover of Chris Abani's 2005 novel, "Graceland."

I’ve been meaning to post a brilliant talk from 2007 by the Nigerian writer, Chris Abani. It’s a TED talk. At one point, he says  “… the problem isn’t really the stories that are being told or which stories are being told, the problem really is the terms of humanity that we’re willing to bring to complicate every story, and that’s really what it’s all about. Abani’s talk gets at just about everything I think about as I encounter “Africa” every day, and then attempt to write about those encounters. Another excerpt:

“… There’s been a lot of talk about narrative in Africa. And what’s become increasingly clear to me is that we’re talking about news stories about Africa; we’re not really talking about African narratives. And it’s important to make a distinction, because if the news is anything to go by, 40 percent of Americans can’t — either can’t afford health insurance or have the most inadequate health insurance, and have a president who, despite the protest of millions of his citizens — even his own Congress — continues to prosecute a senseless war. So if news is anything to go by, the U.S. is right there with Zimbabwe, right? Which it isn’t really, is it? …

The truth is, everything we know about America, everything Americans come to know about being American, isn’t from the news. I live there. We don’t go home at the end of the day and think, “Well, I really know who I am now because the Wall Street Journal says that the Stock Exchange closed at this many points.” What we know about how to be who we are comes from stories. It comes from the novels, the movies, the fashion magazines. It comes from popular culture …”

The talk is a couple of years old so you may already have run across it but it doesn’t hurt to hear it again. It’s worth your 19:34. (Update: This is a higher resolution version than that on Youtube.)

On another note, Chimamada Ngozi Adichie, another personal favorite has been chosen as one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” list of fiction writers worth watching, the first such list in more than a decade. I like this (even though we don’t much care for lists around here).

Further Reading

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.

Gen Z’s electoral dilemma

Long dismissed as apathetic, Kenya’s youth forced a rupture in 2024. As the 2027 election approaches, their challenge is turning digital rebellion and street protest into political power.

A world reimagined in Black

By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.

Securing Nigeria

Nigeria’s insecurity cannot be solved by foreign airstrikes or a failing state, but by rebuilding democratic, community-rooted systems of collective self-defense.