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Michela Wrong (born 1961) is a British journalist and author. She has written about Africa for over 20 years. She began her career covering European affairs before focusing on Africa, reporting on its Western Africa, Central Africa, and East Africa regions. Wrong worked for Reuters, the BBC, and Financial Times before becoming freelance
Her third book, It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower (2009), tells the story of John Githongo, a Kenyan journalist and civil society activist who, in 2002, took on a senior anti-corruption role within the government of President Mwai Kibaki. In this role, Githongo uncovered evidence of corruption (notably the Anglo-Leasing scandal) within the Kibaki government. The book also discusses the role of ethnicity in Kenyan politics and is critical of the response of the Aid community to Githongo's case. The World Bank and the British government's aid department (the Department for International Development) faced criticism, with exceptions such as Edward Clay, the then British High Commissioner to Kenya, noted. It's Our Turn to Eat was censored in Kenya, leading to PEN Kenya president and activist Philo Ikonya acquiring books and bringing them into the country for distribution.
In 2009, Wrong published the novel Borderlines. The story concerns a border conflict between two imaginary states in the Horn of Africa that, according to a Financial Times reviewer, bears similarities to the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflicts from 1998 to 2000.
In 2021, she published , about Rwanda, its president Paul Kagame, and the murder of Patrick Karegeya. (2021). 9781610398428 ISBN 9781610398428 A review of the book in The Washington Post called the book "devastating", while The Guardian called it "uncomfortable reading". Rwandan journalist Vincent Gasana criticized the book as an attempt to "cast the RPF as the villain of any piece, while attempting to Delegitimisation the Rwandan government".
She is a former literary director of the Miles Morland Foundation, an organization that supports writers and their projects, focusing on Africa and other global regions.
Wrong is the granddaughter of Oxford historian Edward Murray Wrong and daughter of the Nephrology Oliver Wrong.
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