I’m Glenna Gordon, an American photographer and journalist, presently commuting between West Africa and Brooklyn. Previously, I lived in Liberia. And before that, I lived in Uganda. I’ve traveled and worked in over a dozen countries in Africa.
This blog is named after a found object — a plastic lion that was in a crate of discarded items a friend and a few other artists had gathered. I sat on their roof in Nakasero, Kampala sorting through the crate. On that day, I was looking for something. “You are lost!” a Uganda might say. But, I’d found this discarded kid’s toy, made in China on the cheap, that somehow ended up in East Africa. Something about the hollowed out, paint-chipped figurine appealed to my understanding of this place: I’d never seen a real lion, after all.
... on Why Invisible Children can’t explain away this photo 
That’s the first paragraph of the short story that won the 2009 Caine Prize, a beautiful and sad meditation on life in a refugee camp, used tshirts, and other things. A lot of great short fiction by African authors is available on their website. Definitely worth your time.
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Tweets that mention Scarlett Lion | Caine Prize: I’m with Orlando -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by scarlettlion, Texas in Africa. Texas in Africa said: via @scarlettlion, an amazing essay from 2009 Caine Prize winner: http://bit.ly/9T3C7D [...]
— July 8, 2010 @ 12:01 pm