Uganda's bloggers are increasingly using their blogs as forums for literary expression, and online poems, short stories and multi-part novellas are becoming increasingly popular.
Carsozy [1] is one of the blogren's most prolific creative writers. His series, The Devil's Bonfire [2], is the story of Simon Katende, a young Kampalan who leaves the city to visit his grandfather and gets mixed up in things he doesn't understand:
He was halfway to the bar when he saw her, his entire body froze and his mouth opened in shock, the glass slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.
It was her the girl from the forest, she was wearing the same skirt and blouse he had seen her in, only this time she was clean and wearing white trainers. He eyes sparkled in the disco lights, they were the same pretty eyes that had stared back at him in terror just a few hours back in the forest.
She smiled and waved at him playfully.
Each installment of Carsozy's story (there are eight currently, and a new “season” is scheduled to start next month) is commented on widely by eager readers:
Everyone at work has been reading ‘the devil's bonfire’ aloud from my PC
— Mudamuli [3]
U know this could be a book. Actually, lucky us, we get o read the manuscript before u publish on hard paper back. Yay. Seriously, nice read Caz.
— Miss Cheri [4]
Jon Gosier [5], an American living and working in Uganda, is also blogging a novel. Muxtionary [6], currently in its second chapter, is African science fiction. Jon introduced [7] it as follows:
I gave myself three rules for writing this story…
- It had to take place largely in Africa
- I wouldn’t sacrifice my own literary tastes
- It had to look forward
The reason for the last being that most literary works about Africa look back at what’s been, what went wrong, who caused what. The historians of African are literally writing the past for the continent and subsequently the rest of the world. In my opinion, there’s not enough dreamers. I want people to come here and let their minds wander about the possibilities of what could be. It’s my personal philosophy that if Africans don’t look ahead to what is potentially in store, they may find themselves in much more dire times in the future.
For those who prefer their literature in short form, Gay Uganda [8] frequently posts poetry inspired by his daily life:
He is
a fast talker-where I
with silence
an armor I
clothe myself;he litters the air
with flak,
decoys,
noise-and lo, behold
he’s past my defenses
deep,
down into
my fastnesses,
holding his own-I cannot not
be in love
with him.