‘HAPPINESS IS A STRANGE WESTERN CONCEPT’

Tired of reading portrayals of Africa from the developed world’s perspective, Aminatta Forna decided to reverse the treatment. The novelist tells Ben East what she found

She calls it “reversing the gaze”. After a lifetime reading books or watching films set in African countries but written by westerners – “the white man usually has a hard time and then flees,” she jokes – Aminatta Forna decided a reckoning was in order.

So in Happiness, her superb fourth novel, a Ghanaian psychiatrist named Attila comes to London. Through his perceptive eyes we observe an entire British culture, value system and people.

“It was about asking westerners in particular to think about the way they live and treat each other. I just wanted to take Attila for a walk in London,” Forna says.

It’s quite a walk, which begins with Attila bumping into an American biologist, Jean, studying urban foxes. When they come across each other again, their nascent friendship leads Jean to commission her Author Aminatta Forna is ‘reversing the Western gaze’ towards Africa in her work network of spotters to help Attila find his niece’s son, who has fled from an immigration crackdown.

It’s a story of loss and resilience, of love and coexistence – and most obviously of connection, as the immigrant community working the streets and hotels come together in small moments of shared understanding.

Early in the book, Attila shares a nod with another black man in a restaurant – a small gesture that signifies so much.

“Ah, the nod,” Forna says. “A white friend of mine recently told me that it had taken him 10 years to figure it out. But this is something that black people do all the time.

“When I went to work at Georgetown University, everyone of African descent – a janitor, a lab assistant or a head of department – would all give me this quick acknowledgment and I’ve always been amazed that white people didn’t know