"In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates."
For years it has always been a frustration when reading about developing nations and internal conflicts as time and time again, the authors use language that does little more that reveal the privilege of the author than the quality of the place. I've done it myself. It is in many ways, an unavoidable situation, because these romantic distortions are in many ways imbued within the geography as much as the writer. After a lifetime of watching Indiana Jones and reading Joseph Conrad, how can one look at South American Jungle, the rocks of Petra, or the raging Congo with a sense of detachment? Perhaps then, following the wisdom of How To Write about Africa, it is best to completely abandon oneself to the romance, the power, the prejudice, and the absurdity.
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