Uganda literature: the writers you should read before visiting

Updated 19 October 2026

Reading a few Ugandan books before your trip gives a much deeper sense of the country than any guidebook. Good starting points are Okot p’Bitek’s “Song of Lawino” (1966), a classic of African poetry; Moses Isegawa’s “Abyssinian Chronicles” (2000), a sweeping novel of Uganda from the 1970s to the 1990s; and Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s “Kintu” (2014) and “The First Woman” (2020), which draw on Buganda history and myth. Short stories by Doreen Baingana and Monica Arac de Nyeko are also excellent.

The classics

“Song of Lawino”, written in Acholi and translated by the author, is the lament of a woman whose husband rejects Acholi traditions for Western ways; its sharp humour and questions about modernity still resonate. Okot p’Bitek followed it with “Song of Ocol”, the husband’s reply. Taban lo Liyong, who also studied and taught at Makerere, was another leading voice of East African literature in the 1960s and 1970s, when Makerere University was a centre of writing for the whole region. See our guide to Acholi culture.

Novels of modern Uganda

Moses Isegawa’s “Abyssinian Chronicles” follows a boy growing up through the Amin and Obote years and the arrival of AIDS, with dark humour and vivid detail. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s “Kintu” traces a curse through generations of one Ganda family from the 18th century to the present, and “The First Woman” follows a girl growing up in 1970s Buganda. Goretti Kyomuhendo and Doreen Baingana, whose linked stories “Tropical Fish” portray a young woman in Entebbe, are also widely read. See our guide to the Buganda kingdom.

Prizes and new voices

Monica Arac de Nyeko won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2007 with “Jambula Tree”, set in a Kampala neighbourhood, and Makumbi won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2014. Kampala’s literary scene is active, with writers’ groups, festivals and small publishers. For non-fiction, Mahmood Mamdani’s work on colonial rule and the Asian expulsion is essential reading. See our guide to Uganda’s independence.

Books about gorillas

For the trek itself, Dian Fossey’s “Gorillas in the Mist” remains the classic, though it is about Rwanda. Buy Ugandan books in Kampala’s bookshops to support local publishing. The gorilla permit costs US$800, or US$600 in April, May and November. See our guide to gorilla books and films.

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