Before it changed the title of one of its puzzled think pieces about the coronavirus’s inability to kill Africans in numbers predicted by doomsayers, the BBC speculated whether poverty could explain the mystery of Africa’s low death rate. When I read the headline, and the article that followed it, I imagined the author (Andrew Harding), throwing his hands up in exasperation as he dispatched […]
Author Archives: Mathew Otieno
Mathew Otieno is a Kenyan writer who moonlights as a communications assistant at a university in Nairobi. As it happens, he is also studying for a Master’s degree in Applied Philosophy there. While an undergraduate student at another university, studying rocks and fossils, he found himself the unexpected recipient of the attention of the editors of MercatorNet, who wanted him to write articles about African issues. Since he had by then grown to admire the online magazine’s verve, he had no trouble accepting the proposal. Then he realised he had to be just as serious. And so he has lived the last few years trying to get his words in order.
