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Michela Wrong

Summary

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Michela Wrong (Born 1961), is a British journalist and author who spent more than two decades writing about Africa. Her postings as a journalist began in Europe and then West, Central and East Africa. She has worked for Reuters, the BBC, and the Financial Times before becoming a freelance writer.

Michela Wrong, Berlin 2006

Career edit

Her debut book, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz (2001), covers the time she spent in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) as it transitioned from the leadership of Mobutu Sese Seko to that of Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Her second book, I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation (2004), discusses the nation of Eritrea and the role foreign nations have played in its history during the 20th century.[1]

Her third book, It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower (2009), tells the story of John Githongo, a Kenyan journalist and civil society activist, who in 2002 took on a senior anti-corruption role within the newly elected government of President Mwai Kibaki. In this role, Githongo uncovered widespread evidence of corruption (notably the Anglo-Leasing scandal) located high up within the Kibaki government. The book also discusses the role of ethnicity in Kenyan politics and is strongly critical of the response of the international aid community to Githongo's case. The World Bank and the British government's aid department (the Department for International Development) come in for particularly strong criticism, though notable exceptions are also highlighted, such as Edward Clay, the then British High Commissioner to Kenya. It's Our Turn to Eat was censored in Kenya, leading to PEN Kenya president and activist Philo Ikonya acquiring books and bringing them into the country for wider distribution.[2]

In 2009 she authored a novel, Borderlines, a legal thriller with a female lawyer protagonist. It focuses on a border dispute between two fictional states in the Horn of Africa, which the Financial Times reviewer thought resembled the Ethiopia-Eritrea disputes in 1998–2000.[3][4]

In 2021 she published Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad, about Rwanda, its president Paul Kagame, and the murder of Patrick Karegeya.[5] A review of the book in The Washington Post called the book "devastating",[6] while The Guardian called it "uncomfortable reading."[7] Rwandan journalist Vincent Gasana, however, criticized the book as "the latest bid to cast the RPF as the villain of any piece, while attempting to delegitimise the Rwanda government."[8]

Award edit

She was awarded the 2010 James Cameron prize for journalism “that combined moral vision and professional integrity.”[9]

Personal edit

Wrong lives in London and is regularly interviewed by the BBC, Al Jazeera, and Reuters on her areas of expertise. She has published opinion pieces and book reviews in The Observer, The Guardian, Financial Times, New York Times, New Statesman, Spectator, Standpoint, Foreign Policy, and travel pieces for Condé Nast's Traveler magazine. She speaks fluent Italian and French.[10]

She is a former literary director of the Miles Morland Foundation, an organisation that actively supports writers and literary projects across Africa.[11]

Wrong is the granddaughter of Oxford historian Edward Murray Wrong and daughter of the nephrologist Oliver Wrong.

Works edit

  • Wrong, Michela (2001). In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo. HarperCollins. pp. 352. ISBN 978-0-06-018880-1.
  • Wrong, Michela (2005). I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation. HarperCollins. pp. 448. ISBN 978-0-06-078092-0.
  • Wrong, Michela (2009). It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower. Harper. p. 368. ISBN 978-0-06-134658-3.
  • Wrong, Michela (2015). Borderlines. Fourth Estate. p. 352. ISBN 978-0-00-814740-2.
  • Michela Wrong (March 2021). Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad. ISBN 978-1610398428.

References edit

  1. ^ Hammer, Joshua (17 July 2009). "Rooting Out Evil". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 January 2021. Michela Wrong has built a distinguished literary career telling stories of African corruption and Western complicity. A former Africa correspondent for Reuters and The Financial Times, Wrong attracted wide attention with her first book, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo, a chronicle of societal collapse in the country then known as Zaire.
  2. ^ Barnes, Madeleine (1 August 2011). "Dark Secrets of Kenya: An Interview with Writer Philo Ikonya". Sampsonia Way Magazine. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
  3. ^ Thomson, Ian (11 September 2015). "'Borderlines', by Michela Wrong". Financial Times. Retrieved 3 January 2021. Michela Wrong, half Italian, half British, has been writing about Africa as a journalist for more than 20 years, including for the Financial Times. Borderlines, her debut novel, is set in a fictional country on the Horn of Africa called North Darrar, which in many ways resembles post-fascist Ethiopia. The novel centres on a border dispute between North Darrar and the neighbouring Federal Democratic Republic of Darrar; Ethiopia's murderous border dispute with Eritrea in 1998-2000 was perhaps on Wrong's mind.
  4. ^ Kola, FT (22 August 2015). "Borderlines by Michela Wrong review – a gripping debut thriller". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 January 2021. Wrong has an accomplished history of writing non-fiction about African politics. Her debut novel has much to say about Africa in the still unsettled aftermath of colonialism, and even more to say about the western powers who scrambled to divide up the continent and who now seek to influence it for their own purposes.
  5. ^ Michela Wrong (March 2021). Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad. ISBN 978-1610398428.
  6. ^ "He's been hailed as Rwanda's hero. But is he really his country's villain?". Washington Post. 30 April 2021. Retrieved 27 March 2023. A British-based journalist with more than two decades of experience covering Africa, Wrong acknowledges that she, along with other Western commentators and historians, contributed to the mythmaking.
  7. ^ "Do Not Disturb review – the disturbing death of a Rwandan dissident". The Guardian. 13 April 2021. Retrieved 28 April 2023. Do Not Disturb will make uncomfortable reading for those who still adhere to that view, even if some will argue that Wrong does not take enough account of Rwanda's efforts to address the legacy of genocide and a country awash in murderers.
  8. ^ Gasana, Vincent (7 May 2021). "Rwanda: 'Do Not Disturb' – Less about the RPF, more about rewriting history". The Africa Report. Retrieved 28 April 2023. the book is the latest bid to cast the RPF as the villain of any piece, while attempting to delegitimise the Rwanda government, by always referring to it as the "Kagame regime." As well as the theory of the "Untold Story" within the strategy of Rwanda's mass murderers to rewrite history, was the emphasis to always target the person of Paul Kagame, a much hated figure to them, much as was his predecessor as leader of the RPF, the late Gisa Rwigyema.
  9. ^ "Award winners". City, University of London. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  10. ^ "Michela Wrong". HarperCollins Publishers UK. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  11. ^ "Home - The Miles Morland Foundation". The Miles Morland Foundation. Retrieved 8 February 2018.

External links edit