Kalamu strikes again. Dug this quote in the profile of Nigerian novelist Helon Habila:

What upsets him even more, though, is an image of his homeland that he has found in the West. In “Waiting for an Angel,” Lomba is told by a woman at a party: “You really must try and get arrested—that’s the quickest way to make it as poet. You’ll have no problem with visas after that, you might even get an international award.” I refer him to the words of the Ugandan writer, Doreen Bainganawho: “Sometimes I wish my life had been more tragic. This is because my audience expects me, as an African writer, to regale them with tales of hunger, war and catastrophe.” He agrees.

“There is a tendency, especially in the West, to look at African writing as all about war and famine and refugees,” he has found. “When they think about Africa they expect someone to be dying. But literature is supposed to show you life in a more balanced way. Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a murderer, ambitious; but he loves his wife, he is a general, a hero. It takes more effort to make a character round, but it makes him more compelling. And Africans are just like any other people: happy, sad, optimistic. If readers don’t want to see people laughing, then they should read other people’s novels.”