Wainaina: Beyond the River Yei | South Sudan (Tour D'Afrique) first read: Jan 2016

[Marieke]

I'll be back with background....

Not easy to find.

Some aspects of this book appear to be fiction, but Kwani? categorizes it as non-fiction. It is an interesting piece intended to shed light on how sleeping sickness has returned to certain communities, like Yei in South Sudan, and why it is a huge potential public health problem. But sleeping sickness does not get the attention that famine, HIV/AIDS, TB or malaria attract.

[Tinea, Nonfiction Logistician]

There was so much to like about this book but it was too light to really bring it home for me.

I like your review, Marieke, where you called Binyavanga Wainaina an "irreverent" writer ("I mean that as a compliment") and how this makes him an interesting choice to write a journalistic piece about a health NGO's work on sleeping sickness in rural South Sudan. Much else makes him an interesting choice: he's Kenyan and Malteser is a German NGO; he is not a health or Sudan expert; he's known more for his culture commentary than any reporting. In the end it made for an almost cheeky insider-outsider perspective, poking at developmeng and cynical aid workers while spotlighting the importance of the work and the people and place he's visiting.

I would love some more background on this work: why? are there other books like it, risky, critical, 'irreverent' outsider-journalist photo-essays on development issues sponsored by NGOs? is poet Ajo Diktor real?

[Marieke]

Tinea wrote: "There was so much to like about this book but it was too light to really bring it home for me.

I like your review, Marieke, where you called Binyavanga Wainaina an "irreverent" wr..."

i had the same question about whether Ajo Diktor is real. The back cover of the book has a "blurb" from Ebba Kalondo, a journalist and editor, who says "Unflinchingly personal, this book uses poetry, phtotographs, reportage and fiction in an unsettling and tender homage to South Sudan."

and in the Foreword, Dr. Adolf Diefenhardt of Malteser Germany, says "The resutl is a kind of diary that constantly moves between fact and fiction."

which is the fiction?

Is Ajo Diktor real at all? maybe Binyavanga Wainaina really did find poems from someone with that name and then made a composite out of the actual doctor he traveled around with?

I feel like i need to read the book again.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I don't believe Ajo Diktor is real; I tried finding his poetry or a mention of him elsewhere and the only links I could find went back to this book. Perhaps the author is a poet and wanted to have a handful of ways to approach the subject.

According to the World Health Organization, sleeping sickness is much less of a threat than it was during the publication of this book. In 2009, for the first time in 50 years, they had less than 10,000 new cases of the disease. They are doing more to be proactive about it and catching more sufferers in stage 1, which as the back of the book explains is much easier and more successful to treat.

The other interesting thing to me is that this book was published mid-war, before South Sudan was its own country. While they are still struggling, for sure, it is a different landscape entirely. I almost need an update!

Still I enjoyed reading it.

One thing that really stood out to me is the ongoing background of the difference between political boundaries and people groups.

[Liralen]

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I don't believe Ajo Diktor is real; I tried finding his poetry or a mention of him elsewhere and the only links I could find went back to this book. Perhaps the author is a poet and wanted to have a handful of ways to approach the subject."

That was my impression too, although it struck me as interesting that 'Ajo Diktor' also gets kind of...snarky...about Wainaina. It is a very different feel than it would be if he'd presented that poetry directly as his own, without the veneer of another identity, or taken himself fully seriously.

In many ways a very odd book, but like Tinea I'd be very curious to know if there are other works that break so many rules, and why.

[Dave]

This book is mentioned in Wainaina's One Day I Will Write about This Place. He was hired by a humanitarian agency to write it, then they didn't like the manuscript, so he self-published it through Kwani press. I too found it underdeveloped. I too am curious about Ajo Diktor. The poems were the best part. Since Diktor isn't credited as author, it's a reasonable assumption that W. wrote the poems himself.

[Tinea, Nonfiction Logistician]

Thanks for that context, Dave. The book makes more sense now. I wish the author had expanded it before self-publishing, but maybe he liked the ephemeral quality and questions it raises.

[Marieke]

Dave wrote: "This book is mentioned in Wainaina's One Day I Will Write about This Place. He was hired by a humanitarian agency to write it, then they didn't like the manuscript, so he self-published it through ..."

I'm going to pull that book out and have a look again. I don't remember that bit and it would be great to see.