The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

I initially noticed this new series premiering on HBO this Sunday from an ad for it in this month’s Vanity Fair and was pulled in by the kenti cloth the woman is wearing, the afro she is rocking, and the very typical animals grazing in the sunset in the back. After doing some reading on the new show, I learned that this show follows Precious Ramotswe (Jill Scott), an Botswanian woman told to follow her dreams by her father, who opens a detective agency. 

Based on a series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith, the show is the first major film/TV project to be shot entirely in Botswana.  The show’s website describes the show and main character as such:

 

Precious Ramotswe exemplifies the courageous efforts by real-life Africans to improve the quality of their lives while preserving their culture. Though Precious brings a playful, even innocent, exuberance to her job, the “mysteries” she investigates are quite serious, and include child kidnapping, poverty, organized crime, health crises, spousal abandonment and infidelity — ongoing problems that confront many Africans (and Americans) today.

I feel like we have been focusing on everything that has been wrong in the representations of Africa or aspects of African life, but maybe The No.1 Ladie’s Detective Agency gets it right.  Unfortunately, we don’t have HBO on campus, but hopefully some people will get a chance to catch it if you go home.