Binyavanga Wainaina talks to Ellah Allfrey about meeting the expectations of an African readership and what to do with a bad review.
Photograph © Internaz
‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
‘My first name, Binyavanga, has always been a sort of barometer of public mood.’
‘Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.’
After a sudden stroke, Binyavanga Wainaina and his lover travel to Nairobi to reconcile with his father.
‘We are, it seems, in the middle of nowhere.’
‘The military recruits around football – they try to pick up the surplus player population. You couldn't make it on the college team? Well, you know, this is kind of similar. Both are violent.’
Nico Walker on American football.
‘Think of mitosis as trillions of slightly near-sighted, plagiarizing students’
