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<\/a>Supporting Ugandan literature in Ugandan Schools<\/p><\/div>\n
Why a Ugandan women\u2019s association? Are there many male writers in your country?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Yes, there are more male writers than women, but I think it\u2019s only understandable because in most African countries it was the men who went the school first and so they had the opportunity to master the art of story writing faster than the women. Also publishers have in the past been taking on male authors more that female authors. Speaking to Julius Ocwinyo, one of Uganda\u2019s most brilliant authors, in an interview at Femrite, he said that he is lucky to be male because publishers are more interested in males than they are in females. \u201cFrom the past, male writers have been taken more seriously in Uganda. Although this is not fair, it is the truth,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
Well, it has been the same even in Europe\u2026<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
And so, the men started the writing craft first before the women and they got more opportunities and became more recognized than the women. When I was in school, I read only a few women; Barbara Kimenye, Elvania Zirimu Mukasa, Mary Okurut; I think about two or three women, but there where more men. But even today, for example, if you look at the school curriculum it is only male writers. So we started Femrite to lobby for women\u2019s literary space, promote women writing and to train more women so more women could excel and get invited by any publisher.<\/p>\n
And your initiative had a lot of support or\u2026?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
I could say yes and no. Some people and institutions supported it, because they knew it was a development project and it was good for Ugandan women. On the other hand, however, there are not many development partners that support Art and Culture activities. So for a long time we had only one development partner, HIVOS, which supported most of our activities. Other partners gave very little funding for one off activities.<\/p>\n
Did you get support from the magazines and media or just individuals?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Yes, we got support from the media, although sometimes they would write that we are publishing materials that are too feminine and domestic. It must be, you know, just women issues, not important. So they looked to the men for the important stories of society, of politics, and when Femrite launched a book, they would say it must be about love, about domestic issues. Different people told us that. It was really mixed feelings from different angles. The issue is, however, that people write the stories that are closest to their hearts. So, we could not force the women to write what they did not want to write. Like I remember this article, when Femrite launched four books at once. The journalist wrote that much as Femrite had launched four books, it was only to please the donors and that soon the organisation would be off the scene. That was in the 1990. Now Femrite is heading towards scooping a whole twenty years and will surely not go off the scene anytime soon.<\/p>\n
Some people have been supportive though. For instance individual lecturers and scholars see the importance of women\u2019s literature in balancing Uganda\u2019s literary scene, the literary arena. So our books are taught in some universities and other institutions of higher learning.<\/p>\n
What were the books, if you remember?<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n I think it was Silent Patience<\/b>, A Season of Mirth<\/b>, Memoirs of a Mother<\/b> and, I think, Invisible Evil<\/b>. That was a grand harvest. There were mixed feelings about our sustainability, will they sustain it? But we have sustained it. To date, members are writing and more members are coming into the organisation.<\/p>\n If you look at the state scholarly curriculum in our country, we have our national literature and foreign literature, universal, like they call it. In your foreign literature curriculum, do you have women writers, like Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir or others?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Well, there is Emily Bront\u00eb, Wuthering Heights<\/b>, the old classics. I think Emily is the only women that I remember studying in school. There are no contemporary women writers on our curriculum. We don\u2019t have Virginia, we don\u2019t have anyone apart from a few on supplementary readers. Unfortunately, we do not have a storng literary voice in Uganda. As writers and publishers, I really think that we should pressure the state to create a section of Ugandan literature on the national curriculum. I don\u2019t see why not. But Femrite seems to be a lonely voice in this advocacy. Our big publishing houses such as Fountain Publishers MK Publishers and others, publish only one literary title a year and so it is not really their area of interest. It is sad to see that Ugandan literature is not given any priority in Uganda. The books on the syllabus are placed alongside other already popular books and so there is a possibility that they won\u2019t be studied because the teachers will most of the time choose the more familiar texts such as Wuthering Heights<\/b> by Bronte or Hard Times<\/b> by Charles Dickens. New entries by the Ugandan writers such as Austin Bukenya, Timothy Wangusa and others will not be taught or studied if they are not placed in their own section.<\/p>\n Are the books written in English?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Yes. They are all written in English. English is the language of instruction and it is the official language.<\/p>\n Do you believe Femrite has thus far managed to create a public opinion and a critical mass for sustaining women\u2019s literature?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Yes, I think so, because it is written about in the press and sometimes the articles raise a lot of literary issues. Femrite is now too relevant to be sidelined.<\/p>\n