Is Uganda's creative writing an endangered species?

For creative writing to undergo exponential growth in Uganda, motivation is key to this. Austin Ejiet, the author of Aida, Hurray for Somo and other stories and a seasoned columnist with the Daily Monitor points out in a rather dispassionate manner. His sombre mood reflects the disheartening state of creative writing in Uganda. He seems rather displeased with this situation.
“Creative writing is an endangered species in Uganda.” He attributes this grave situation to lack of incentives like prizes allotted to creative works to spur many people to venture into creative writing.

He credits Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s literary growth to the international sphere because of the motivation that spurred him into serious creative writing.

“Ngugi wrote Weep Not Child while he was in North Court Hall.” (Currently, Nsibirwa Hall, at Makerere University). The purpose for writing the novel was “to win the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature,” Ejiet points out. “He won it and that is why he didn’t stop writing.” He notes that Uganda has a poor History of rewarding creative writers. Musicians get better rewards and that is why most of them continue singing and live off music.

The government should come up with incentives to recognise creative works. Corporate like the MTN, Celtel and Mango should also consider setting aside rewards to recognise some of the best creative works in Uganda.

The aspect of survival has also been unfavourable to the growth of creative writing in Uganda. Most people are too busy figuring out ways of surviving rather than sitting down to write say, a poem. He sights his own example when he had a 25-year teaching stint at Makerere University.

He would start work at 8 pm and 5 pm. To him, that was too exhaustive to create any room for creative writing. The 25 years were kind of wasted in terms of his creative output.

The publishing industries also play a role in foreseeing the dying spirit of creative writing. Ninety percent of the proceeds from any creative works go to the publisher, while the author takes away a meagre ten percent.

The lack of a writers’ council or a national writers’ association has similarly foreseen a major slump in creative writing in Uganda. Were there such associations, they would practically encourage the growth of creative writing talent and support such talent to crawl out of the woods into the light of the world. They would act as the mouthpiece of the creative writers in major aspects of their ventures.

Ejiet also sights out the visual arts as a major competitor to creative writing. In the contemporary society, many people are comfortable watching pornography than sitting down to read a 500-page book.

Nevertheless, “creative writing is not a dead force in Uganda.” While he was the head of the Literature Department at Makerere University, he designed a creative writing course in 1991, though it never survived to date. Creative writing, though, has given him name recognition. The name recognition helped him gain some money sent from Japan to honour his creative writing zeal.

“The rewards do not come in ones lifetime,” he says.

He says there has been a concerted and painful progress in African writing. However, much of such writing has been the copycat of the Achebe, p’Bitek, Soyinka and Ngugi classics.

“Creative writers should come up with new and appealing genres to set a unique system of creative works. Most of the earlier African writing dwelt intensively on colonialism. This has been overtaken by events.

“Creative writing is different from writing a historical piece. In creative writing, especially on current issues, one should endeavour to keep in touch with current events. A short story would do better here.” It takes a leisurely pace, a day or a week to write a short story unlike a novel, which takes a long time, even five years!

He gives an example of Nuruddin Farah. His writing focussed on Said Barre and his tyranny while he was Somali president.

“Despite being a very bright fellow, he has nothing to say because Barre is no more.” The events during Barre’s tyrannical regime were overtaken by History.

“If you want to write a novel, look at issues in the fullness of events.”

There is so much to write about, Ejiet hints. “Life is the raw material for all literature.” That explains why most of his writings especially the short stories focus on the varied situations and absurdities in life. He employs satire to unveil the injustices in everyday life. “You can write about the most sacrilegious thing and get away with it.

Not all is lost, though. He still nurses his disappointment on the desperate situation of the Ugandan creative works, which do not retain a hold as set books in the syllabus.

“Why do they keep recycling Western classics?” There are good published writers in Uganda. Some of them have ten titles to their name but none of their books is a set book. He looks forward to the day when Ugandan creative works will be given uniform importance as the Western creative works.

Joshua Masinde