It does not seem possible that people in the 21st century could believe the continent of Africa is a single country. But Dipo Faloyin, journalist and senior editor at VICE, begs to differ in Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent. This expert collection of reflections pushes back — often humorously — on the various, maddening ways the wider world treats Africa and speaks of it as a single country, "devoid of nuance and cursed to be forever plagued by deprivation."

Africa is a continent with 54 nations, more than 2,000 languages, and home to 1.4 billion people. According to Faloyin, however, for too long the continent has been thought of as a "buzzword for poverty and strife…where nothing but misery grows" or as "one big safari park." These lazy assumptions and perceptions make easy targets for the author, who begins his portrait of modern Africa with a ...