Wednesday, October 26, 2005

More African books to look out for...contemporary Ugandan writing

I've had great feed back from my list of contemporary Nigerian books to look out for, so I'll just add a few more, widening my remit beyond Nigeria this timeto Uganda. I lay no claim to comprehensiveness or in depth knowledge of Ugandan fiction today....anyhow here goes

Tropical Fish: Stories Out of Entebbe by Doreen Baingana is a beautiful collection of interlinked short stories following three Ugandan sisters from childhood to boarding school to life as an immigrant in America -it's funny, sassy and resonates with meaning for me- even though I've never been to Uganda- and has been nominated twice for the Caine Prize

Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa is another book set in Uganda and the Netherlands and is a powerful and darkly humorous rendition of the life of a young Ugandan boy through the Amin Years and then on to life as an immigrant in the Netherlands. I haven't read Snakepit which is his next book, but it's on my list

No Place Like Home - Yasmin Alibhai Brown, one of Britain's "leading commentators on race" grew up in Uganda and here recounts what it was like as an Asian in Uganda before and during the early part of the Amin years (pre the expulsion) and the struggle to settle in different parts of the world. Before reading this I hadn't realized how widely scattered Ugandan Asians became or that many of them had gone back to settle there in the mid-nineties....

Monica Arac de Nyeko's short stories are worth looking out for on the web...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

watch out for Jackee Budesta Batanda as well. You can read her stories online.


Chika

Anonymous said...

Watch out for Jane Musoke-Nteyafas too. I just discovered her and liked what I read. You can read her stories, articles and poems online. There is an Africanized Maya Angelou essence to her fiction writing and poetry.....

Check her out on chickenbones, Bahiyah Magazine and Ugpulse. Here is one of the poems I dug the most!


WE BE BLACK PEOPLE
BY JANE MUSOKE-NTEYAFAS

We be black people
We be African people
But we come in all shades
Of browness
We be espresso/latte/java/
mochaccino/megaccino/cappuccino/
chocolate mousse/gourmet coffee/
Arabica/robusta/cardammon/
We be Irish coffee/Irish Whisky/
We be café con leche
Café au lait.


We be black people
We be African people
But we come in all shades
Of browness.
Yellow ochre/brown ochre/red ochre/
Earth brown/forest soil brown/mud brown/
Sandy brown/golden brown/purplish brown/
Camel coloured/caramel coloured/
Walnut/groundnut/peanut brown/
We be suntanned shades/sub-saharan shades/
Pitch black/sooty black/ebony black/purplish black/
Onyx/jetty/inky/charcoal/carbon.


We be black people
We be African people
We be proud
Of our imperial splendour
Of our majestic colour
We be exotic woods
And black pearls
We be everything that is beautiful.



Ugwuoha

Anonymous said...

To read Jane's articles and interviews at UGPulse go to:

http://www.ugpulse.com/search.asp?ugaSrch=jane+musoke