Description
“For someone who wants to have in mind how the African economy actually works, The Bright Continent is a great place to start.” —Reuters
Dayo Olopade knew from personal experience that Western news reports on conflict, disease, and poverty difficult to understand the true story of modern Africa. And so she crossed sub-Saharan Africa to document how peculiar people maintain their day by day challenges. She found what cable news ignores: a continent of ambitious reformers and young social entrepreneurs, driven by kanju—creativity born of African difficulty. It’s a trait found in pioneers like Kenneth Nnebue, who turned cheap VHS tapes into the multimillion-dollar film industry Nollywood. Or Ushahidi, a technology collective that crowdsources citizen activism and disaster relief. A shining counterpoint to the conventional wisdom, The Bright Continent rewrites Africa’s challenges as opportunities to innovate, and celebrates a history of doing more with less as a powerful model for the remainder of the world.
“[An] upbeat study of development in Africa…The book is written more in wonder at African ingenuity than in anger at foreign incomprehension.” —The New Yorker