Strange and Difficult Times: Notes on a Global Pandemic

A devastating critique of global inequities and prejudices exposed by Covid-19, and a vivid first-hand account of Africas pandemic.

In this new collection, Nanjala Nyabola takes stock of a world in crisis. Her incisive yet moving prose unpacks the injustices shaping Covids starkly different outcomes between countries and communities, and reveals rich societies shockingly inaccurate view of how her home continent has fared. From the hidden truth of fast action, mutual aid and transnational cooperation in poorer countries to the widespread falsehoods of Western commentary, Nyabola exposes a global society scarred by colonial legacies, lazy narratives and ingrained biases.

These essays are an inventory of the staggering political and social failures of our time, and the myths exposed in Covids wake. Watching coronavirus spread in Kenya and around the world, Nyabola reflects on a long history of onlookers denying the Global Souths agency and successes in times of emergency. Armed with her insider-outsider perspective, she reveals harsh truths about our broken system, and calls powerfully for a sincerely shared post-pandemic worldone where voices like hers can help to write a real global history.