Frank Bures

The Roots of War in Africa

Posted in Africa, Clips, Travel on November 4, 2008 by frankbures

Earlier this year, I got what sounded like an impossible assignment: Explain why there’s so much war in Africa. On the face of it, the question is almost laughable. But underneath lie real issues that have to do with identity, political evolution and how we decide who gets what. The story starts like this:

I was sitting on the plane to Uganda with a Belgian carpet salesman next to me. He leaned over and asked where I was going. I told him Kampala.

“Ah,” he said, “Africa!” He shook his head like he’d never heard anything so sad. “You see the way they kill each other?”

“Um, yeah,” I said, not sure what else to say.

“They blame us! And, okay, we did some not-so-good things. But it’s been a long time, and they’re still killing each other!”

“Why do you think that is?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Do you have a better explanation than it’s a little…” He chose his words carefully. “…a little in their system?”

You can read the rest at World Ark Online, or in full graphic form here.

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Does anybody really know how far it is?

Posted in America, Clips, Press, Travel, Writing on November 3, 2008 by frankbures

In the November issue of Madison Magazine, there’s a fun story I got to do, inspired partly by the Experimental Travel movement, partly by Will Self, and partly my own travel experiences. Early one morning, I set out to walk from the place we were living in Verona, Wisconsin, to Madison. It was long trek, but well-worthwhile. I think everyone should do this to get a real sense of how far things are. In an interview with my editor Brennan Nardi, she asked: “First, what the hell were you thinking? Second, what are trying to convey to the reader through this kind of travel writing versus the more conventional service-oriented “go, see, do” travel story?” More on that soon, but for now a brief answer, along with other thoughts on writing, can be found here.

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Okay, Fine, Dammit

Posted in America, Press, Writing on October 31, 2008 by frankbures

A couple years ago, I was teaching a class in Madison on freelance writing. There was a woman who sat in back named Maggie, and she said she’d never heard of freelancing before. But by the time the second class rolled around, she had pitched, sold and written her first story. Not surprisingly, these days, she’s enjoying no small success, both in her writing and with her blog, Okay, Fine, Dammit, which gets a phenomenal amount of traffic from people who’ve fallen in love with her voice. (Check it out, you’ll see why.) But also this month, she and I share bylines in Madison Magazine. Hers is a heartbreaking piece about what could be a tired and maudlin topic in the hands of a lesser writer: domestic violence. It’s been great to watch her career take off and her talents unfold, and this week, our great editor, Brennan Nardi did an interview with both of us for her blog Forward. You can read her (and my) responses here.

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State by State

Posted in America, Books, Clips, Travel, World Hum, Writing on October 27, 2008 by frankbures

Over at World Hum, my interview with Matt Weiland about he and Sean Wilsey’s new anthology State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, is now online. In it he says some really interesting stuff, including this: “One thing that surprised both of us was how much the writers found that hasn’t been bulldozed for speed, as Laurie Lee once said about the English landscape. We think of the country as being so homogenized, and of course it is if you only stay on the interstate and only shop at the big box superstores and listen to commercial radio. But when you get out in it, you see that there are still all sorts of things that are still very local and that vary from state to state.” You can read the rest here.

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The Obama Effect (or: Obama is Beautiful World)

Posted in Africa, America, Travel on October 25, 2008 by frankbures

In the Somali Mall not far from my house, there are signs for Obama all over the place. The other day, I was there talking to a guy from Ethiopia, who’d just come back from a visit. He said everyone at home, or 99% of them, want Obama to win. What this means is a matter of debate, but a friend of mine, Mukoma wa Ngugi, just had a great piece on the BBC about what Obama means (and doesn’t mean) for Africa. In his eyes, it speaks as much to the failures of African countries as to the success of a half-member of its diaspora. The implications for the continent are mixed at best.

But one way an Obama presidency might be a bright spot for Africa is the simple fact that Obama knows (or did know) what things look like from the ground up. Back in April, he commented that, “When Senator Clinton brags ‘I’ve met leaders from eighty countries’–I know what those trips are like! I’ve been on them. You go from the airport to the embassy. There’s a group of children who do native dance. You meet with the CIA station chief and the embassy and they give you a briefing. You go take a tour of a plant that [with] the assistance of USAID has started something. And then, you go. You do that in eighty countries, you don’t know those eighty countries. [W]hen I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa–knowing the leaders is not important. What I know is the people.”

Which means that for once, we may have a president who actually knows the world not because he was on a committee, or lived in some walled-off compound, but because he has been part of that world, and it made him who he is, and he knows what it’s like to live out in it. And as we all know, Obama is Beautiful World:

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America, State by State

Posted in America, Books, Travel, World Hum, Writing on October 16, 2008 by frankbures

A couple weeks ago, I went to a great reading & discussion at the new Minneapolis Public Library. Susan Orlean, Matt Weiland, Said Sayrafiezadeh and Philip Conners were all in town to promote the new book, State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, which Weiland edited and to which the others had contributed. It’s a fantastic idea, based on the old WPA guides from the 1930s. The discussion was a lot about the meaning of place and the stories we tell ourselves about the places we live. We also got to watch the full 35 minutes of the Powell’s documentary about the book:

After the reading, a few of us went out for drinks, which was fun, and my interview with Matt Weiland will be up on World Hum in the near future. Meanwhile, you can read the contributor bios here.

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Lost in Translation

Posted in Uncategorized on October 14, 2008 by frankbures

Just in case you’ve been wanting to read this site in Chinese, now you can.

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Small Press

Posted in Africa, America, Arts in Africa, Press, Travel on October 5, 2008 by frankbures

Good thing for google alerts, or I might have missed the fact that I’m a “literary scholar,” according to a nice piece in Malawi’s Nation newspaper. I also got a kind mention in Stephen Regenold’s piece on where travel writers like to travel. My destination of choice, however, didn’t make the cut. Lagos isn’t quite what what Forbes Traveler readers are looking for, but I do think it’s one of the greatest cities on the world. Which may be why I don’t usually read Forbes Traveler.

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Best American Travel Writing 2008

Posted in Africa, Books, Travel, World Hum, Writing on September 21, 2008 by frankbures

A few days ago I got my copy of the Best American Travel Writing 2008 in the mail. Needless to say, I was happy to have two of my stories chosen for the Notable Travel Writing list in the back. But it was also nice to see some of my friends and favorite writers in there too. Among the collection were great pieces by Jim Campbell (a charter member of our Madison writers drinking squad) Bryan Mealer, who I interviewed for World Hum a few months ago, and fellow twin citoyen Catherine Watson. But one of my favorite pieces in the book is a gem by Jeffery Tayler who wrote The Woman in the Keffiyeh for World Hum. It is, I think, a near-perfect story, a crystal clear moment in time. You can’t help be transported right there with him. There are also some great pieces in the anthology by writers like Bill Buford, Peter Hessler, J. Malcolm Garcia and others.