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Ciku Kimeria is a Kenyan author "Of goats and poisoned oranges" - (https://www.amazon.com/goats-poisoned-oranges-Ciku-Kimeria-ebook/dp/B00HBBWPI6), development consultant, adventurer and travel blogger (www.thekenyanexplorer.com). She writes both fiction and non-fiction focusing on African stories that need telling. She has worked on diverse pieces for various international and local publications including Quartz, Ozy, The East African etc. She has travelled to 45 countries – 16 of them in Africa. 153 countries to go and 63 territories!
"Of goats and poisoned oranges" has been extremely well received in Kenya and beyond. It tells the story of a Kenyan middle aged power couple and their complicated marriage. The novel explores issues of greed, revenge, betrayal and murder. It runs from the 1960s to 2013. It has been described as “Wicked, funny, poignant, wacky, human, a big ball of fun and danger”, “A unique and captivating book”, “Fun and intriguing”, “Impossible to put down once you start reading.”
She recently moved to Dakar, Senegal from Kenya to work on her second novel. She also works at as the Africa Communication Manager at a leading global strategy consulting firm.
She holds a B.S. in Management Science from MIT with minors in Urban Planning and International development studies.
How To (Not) Write About Africa - Confronting How Africa Is Represented In The West
Over a decade later, the satirical Granta piece by one of Kenya's best known contemporary authors - Binyavanga Wainaina - is still as relevant as it was when he first wrote it.
How to write about Africa is an eye-opening piece for anyone reading or writing about the continent. While this "othering" is not only limited to news about Africa, Binyavanga captures it so well in a way that forces readers to question everything we have ever read or written about the continent.
Pieced together with Nigerian author Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie's The danger of a single story, this piece forces us to question the "single stories" we might have read about poor people, refugees, voters in the US, Brexit supporters, etc. How many times do we think of ourselves as complex individuals capable of contradictions, but classify the lives of others as one or two dimensional - neat boxes where we can put everyone else in, while we ourselves refuse to be boxed.
Of course, reporting on the continent has improved over time - the Africa rising narrative now swings the pendulum to the other side. From 2000 to 2011, the Economist changed it's cover image from "The hopeless continent" to "Africa rising". Yet again, this dichotomy does not in any way capture the full experience of living on the continent. This is why, even more than ever, we need balanced reporting, a diversity of stories that tell the good, the bad and yes - the ugly, but not just the ugly.
Every now and then, someone does forget that the continent is watching how our stories are told. Scottish actress, Louise Linton, is still reeling from having to pull her embellished memoir off Amazon when she stepped on the continent's toes by writing about how she became a central character in a civil war in Zambia - a war that never happened. #Lintonlies caught the world's attention. CNN had to officially issue an apology to Kenya as a result of calling the country a "hotbed of terrorism".
Objective reporting is our responsibility.
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