Baking Cakes in Kigali

Holiday reading: Gaile Parkin's tale of life in Rwanda is a light, funny and authentic read, says Clare-Marie White

by Clare-Marie White 17th December 2009

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin. Atlantic Books (Grove Atlantic Ltd). ISBN 978 1 84354 7471. Paperback: £7.99  ‘Like the Ladies Detective Agency but in Rwanda’, screams the cover of this edition. And the back. The fear with this book is that it only made the shelves because the publishers have decided we can cope with Africa if it’s dressed in a friendly story by someone with not too much of the nasty, er, African stuff about death and starvation and corruption.