One does not usually look to Vanity Fair for gravitas, much less for edifying coverage of Africa. Nonetheless, the July issue, including the VF website, invited U2's Bono to be guest editor of a special issue devoted to Africa.
There is more than enough pop ephemera contained within this special edition, to be sure, but there are also several worthwhile articles, interviews, features, sidebars, and the like. Specialists won't find much new, but finding something new for specialists shouldn't really be the point, right? Contributors include Bill Clinton, Christopher Hitchens, William Langewiesche, Binyavanga Wainaina, Sebastian Junger, Chris Rock, and many, many others.
On the newsstand you’ll find that the issue has been produced with many different cover options. Annie Liebovitz contributed twenty different cover shots, all of which are available on newstands and online (mine has Don Cheadle on the front, but you can see a slide show of all of the covers here) and she also contributes photographs to Brad Pitt's (yes, that Brad Pitt — as I said — the magazine does not move too far from its ambit) interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Naturally the magazine cannot help itself — the issue concludes with an unrelated feature on HRH Diana, Princess of Walesv– but that jarringly inapt juxtaposition aside, the issue is an engaging and important one.
