Loss, Pain and Mystery in Uganda

 

A review of The Atlas of Forgotten Places by Jenny D. Williams, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2017

 

This intriguing novel revolves around the Lord’s Resistance Army, the movement led by rebel warlord/messianic leader Joseph Kony that terrorized northern Uganda for decades beginning in the 1980s.  The author set her story and her characters accurately in the context of wariness and suspicion that typified the Acholi homeland in 2006, just after the fighting migrated to Sudan and the Congo. The Acholi people were traumatized by conflict. All were victims of one sort or another. Especially vulnerable were returnees, those who had escaped from the LRA.  Back home, they lived with the stigma of mistrust.  Rose, the best drawn character in this story, is one of those folks. She harbors memories, fears and secrets, which leak out slowly as the plot progresses.

The basic plot, however, involves the disappearance of Lily, a young American woman. Her aunt Sabine comes to Uganda to find her.  Has Lily simply disappeared or been taken against her will?  Sabine has lots of baggage from her earlier work in Africa, even in Uganda. Sabine investigates, perseveres, enlists others to help, and along the way confronts her own demons.  After-the-fact, the plot seems contrived, but it does push the tale along. There are several nice, unexpected twists as the story comes to fruition.

Author Williams’ strengths are in her descriptions of Acholi life and the introspections of her characters as they confront the obstacles before them.  

Readers will undoubtedly come away with improved knowledge of the trauma that Ugandans experienced. The personalization of that trauma via the characters of this story adds immeasurably to the impact of such understanding.

Disclaimer: As readers of this blog know I too am an author. Two of my books, The Last Rhino and Finding Kony, also deal with the predations of the Lord’s Resistance Army in the region. I commend Ms. Williams for getting it right in penning a significant contribution for outside comprehension of the terrible – and continuing - pains that afflict the Acholi people.

  

Opinion, Criticism and Satire

 

A review of How to Write About Africa – Collected Works by Binyavanga Wainaina, One World, New York, 2022.

 

Kenyan writer Wainaina is a puzzle. Outspoken, even outrageous, his métier is criticism and sarcasm. This is shown both in his fiction and his essays, which share this tome.  Wainaina spares no quarter in portraying excess human foibles, including greed or misplaced humanitarianism.  His satire bites deep and certainly reflects an obsession with pointing out erroneous western perceptions about Africa and Africans.  The title of the book comes from an early essay to that effect. Yet, Wainaina is an equal opportunity critic in that he also diatribes against the motivations of fellow Africans in playing to western stereotypes or in their relations with each other.  He delights in showing warts and all.  His characters are very human.

The fiction pieces allow the author to develop realistic but purposely overdrawn characters. I liked Ships in High Transit about tourists at the coast being bamboozled by folks pretending to be Maasai. Real truths about both sides emerge.  Equally entertaining is An Affair to Disremember. It is sort of a sad story about lives and expectations gone awry. 

Most telling of the essays is Beyond River Yei which is a report of a sojourn in South Sudan as part of an effort to eradicate sleeping sickness. In that piece Wainaina demonstrates legitimate chops as a feature writer.

Readers won’t want to miss key satires of How to Be a Dictator and the title piece How to Write about Africa.

Throughout the collection there is plenty for a reader to think about, muddle over, agree with, reject, or object to. That, in fact, is the author’s goal.  And, it is well accomplished.  

Coda: Nakuru born son of a Kikuyu father and a Ugandan Tutsi mother, after secondary school Binyavanga fled to South Africa where he began his writing career, and came out. Subsequently, he returned to Kenya to rattle cages there via Kiwani?, a magazine he published. Sadly, Wainaina died young in 2019.