I just received an email with a promotion of this book (cover inserted above). I haven't read it, and I don't feel like it. I don't even feel like taking the time to linking to it properly.
You guess why - and tell me - after you've read the introduction, I got:
Hi there. I'm writing to announce the US publication of my new book CRAZY RIVER: Exploration and Folly in East Africa (Free Press/Simon and Schuster). It's about a three month journey I made from Zanzibar to the source of the Nile in Rwanda. Along the way I interviewed a president, explored many bars and nightclubs with a golf pro on the skids, learned a lot about what's happening in contemporary East Africa, and made a disastrous and terrifying attempt to descend a previously unexplored river by boat.
![](<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br /><span xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/InteractiveResource" property="dct:title" rel="dct:type">Photography and writing</span> by <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="www.duniaduara.org" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">Pernille Bærendtsen</a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.<br />Based on a work at <a xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" href="www.pernille.typepad.com/duniaduara" rel="dct:source">www.pernille.typepad.com/duniaduara</a>.<br />Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="www.duniaduara.org" rel="cc:morePermissions">www.duniaduara.org</a>.){kind=link}
Is this yet another book written authoritatively on African issues by a writer who did his research in 'many bars and nightclubs'? What kind of information would one get from raving drunkards and whores, especially where it pertains to important socio-economic matters of this African region? Shame, based on such an introduction, I wouldn't even lift this book from the bookstore shelf!
Posted by: Wanjiku Wanderi | Sunday, 23 October 2011 at 09:00 AM
Asante dada! Glad not to be the only one wondering about the profoundness of this book...
Posted by: Pernille | Sunday, 23 October 2011 at 09:11 AM
Jeez, can someone hand this guy Binyavanga Wainaina to read?
http://www.granta.com/Magazine/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1
Posted by: Jonas | Sunday, 23 October 2011 at 07:58 PM
Jesus... There is a long drainage canal that runs through Mwanza. It has never been properly explored.. Our Livingstone is probably referring to this "river?"
Posted by: Chris | Monday, 31 October 2011 at 11:12 AM