Ocwyino on his life and writing

Julius Ocwyino is a man who passes for any ordinary fellow, until you get to know he is the author of Fate of the Banished. He is a forty seven year old, seemingly quiet man, who had a happy childhood and loved occasional fights with his childhood friends.
His father, Kelemente Ochen, worked in the Prisons Service in different parts of the country. In 1961, while Kelemente was still stationed in Masaka district, Julius Ocwyino was born.
Living in different parts of the country exposed Ocwyino to various cultures quite early enough. Such exposure gave him an opportunity to appreciate them. This is the reason why he learnt to speak Acholi first, and not Lang'o his mother tongue.
"Fate of the Banished itself is not about Lang'o but different parts of the country," Ocwyino points out.
Such rich diversity in terms of thematic concerns and messages portrayed in Fate of the Banished is what contributed to its consideration as an A-level set book this year, 2008. For this opportunity, he has a reason to smile.
Fate of the Banished being crowned as a set book, so far marks one of his biggest achievements, though more new challenging situations keep coming up.
But as a writer, the monetary value gained from books is relative. Basically, the ten percent royalty that the author receives from sales of a book isn't all that handsome. However, cases like invitations to important events or occasions like Writer-in-residence, Book fairs and to attend conferences of international organizations like UNESCO, UNICEF present a good opportunity in terms of monetary gain.
Ocwyino was a Writer-in-residence in Cumbria in Northern England in 2003.
"The sponsors were British Council and Cumbria Arts Council." The invitation lasted for only two weeks.
Nevertheless, sales from his copy Fate of the Banished have increased, something which will no doubt fatten his royalties.
Kelemente, his father, who wasn't a writer, wasn't highly educated because education was not highly encouraged, then. He passed away in 1994 while aged about 70 years.
"He was still very fit," Ocwyino says fondly of him. His mother, who is a housewife, is about 70 years old.
Ocwinyo is a family man, who has one wife and four children, three of who are boys. He lives in Kisasi, where he plies to and fro work everyday.
"Writing is easy," so said one writer. It is easy as getting a blank piece of paper and gazing at it until droplets of blood form on your forehead. Being as it may, nothing really prompted Ocwyino to start writing.
"I just found myself writing," he remarks, after a brief reflection. "My first book was a play called Tangled Strings." He wrote it in 1986, though it is still unpublished. Before that, he wrote poems. Some of them were published in the Uganda Poetry Anthology in 2000.
He wrote Fate of the Banished in 1993. It took him about two months, November and December to complete writing it. He still prefers to write in long hand, especially when writing creative works. However, a part from writing poems and novels, he does not fancy writing the short story.
"I wrote only one but it wasn't published," Ocwyino remarks, adding that he has forgotten the title of the short story.
Why can't he publish them now that he is not only a celebrated writer but also a book editor with Fountain Publishers? He says he likes to see them the way they are. To him, it cannot make a difference whether or not they are published.
At his Fountain Publishers' office, located at Makerere University, his work mostly involves editing textbooks and creative works for both children and adults and from primary school to university. He also executes a lot of administrative work like soliciting books from authors.
"That is why there are occasions when there are not a lot of creative works to edit."
For a man whose values rotate on hard work and honesty, his role models are as diverse. He considers Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Albert Camus, William Faulkner and Jean Paul Sartre as his literary role models. Nelson Mandela is his other role model, considering his integrity and perseverance during the apartheid era in South Africa.
Ocwyino, who likes being quiet, travels to his rural home in Teboke once or twice a year, because of distance and his busy schedule. He enjoys photography although, "I don't have a camera yet," and "walking… a lot of walking. That is why I am so trim," he observes.
Occasionally, he takes of some time, especially in the Sunday afternoons to walk from Kisasi to Kiwatule, along the Northern by-pass and back.
Of all the events in his life, he considers the death of his elder brother in 1977 as a result of a heart condition that was not diagnosed early enough, as the most unfortunate event in his life. His brother was still a student in Old Kampala Secondary School.
Apart from Fate of the Banished (1997), Ocwyino has also published The Unfulfilled Dream (2002), and Footprints of the Outsider. Born in 1961 in Teboke village in Apac District, Ocwyino studied at Aboke Junior Seminary and Lango College. He later joined Institute of Teacher Education, Kyambogo, where he earned a Diploma in Education. Later, he went to Makerere University, where he received a Bachelor of Education. He taught at various educational institutions before becoming an editor for Fountain Publishers, Kampala.

Joshua Masinde