Strange and Difficult Times: Notes on a Global Pandemic

Nanjala Nyabola's new collection explores the injustices and false narratives surrounding Covid-19 in Africa, exposing the colonial legacies, lazy narratives, and ingrained biases that have shaped its response. She calls for a shared post-pandemic world where voices like hers can help to write a real global history.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 184 pages
Publication date: 08 December 2022
Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd

In this powerful collection, Nanjala Nyabola takes a comprehensive look at the global inequalities and prejudices exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Through her vivid firsthand account of the pandemic in Africa, Nyabola offers a poignant reflection on the starkly different outcomes experienced between countries and communities. Her incisive prose uncovers the injustices that have shaped the pandemic's impact, highlighting the inaccurate portrayal of Africa by wealthy societies. From the hidden realities of swift action, mutual aid, and transnational cooperation in poorer countries to the widespread falsehoods propagated by Western commentary, Nyabola exposes the deep-rooted colonial legacies, lazy narratives, and ingrained biases that have shaped our global society. These essays serve as a stark inventory of the staggering political and social failures of our time, and the myths debunked by the COVID-19 crisis. As Nyabola witnesses the spread of coronavirus in Kenya and around the world, she reflects on a long history of onlookers denying the agency and successes of the Global South in times of emergency. Drawing from her unique insider-outsider perspective, she reveals harsh truths about our broken system and passionately calls for a truly shared post-pandemic world—one where voices like hers can contribute to writing a more inclusive and accurate global history.

Weight: 308g
Dimension: 139 x 217 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781787387805