Denys Johnson-Davies was an eminent Arabic-to-English literary translator who translated, inter alia, several works by Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, Sudanese author Tayeb Salih, Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish and Syrian author Zakaria Tamer.
Okot p'Bitek was a Ugandan poet, who achieved wide international recognition for Song of Lawino, a long poem dealing with the tribulations of a rural African wife whose husband has taken up urban life and wishes everything to be westernised. Song of Lawino was originally written in the Acholi dialect of Southern Luo, translated by the author into English, and published in 1966. It was a breakthrough work, creating an audience among anglophone Africans for direct, topical poetry in English; and incorporating traditional attitudes and thinking in an accessible yet faithful literary vehicle. It was followed by the Song of Ocol (1970), the husband's reply.
Nuruddin Farah is a Somali novelist. His first novel, From a Crooked Rib, was published in 1970 and has been described as "one of the cornerstones of modern East African literature today". He has also written plays both for stage and radio, as well as short stories and essays. Since leaving Somalia in the 1970s he has lived and taught in numerous countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Sudan, India, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa.
Acholi is a Southern Luo dialect spoken by the Acholi people in the districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader in northern Uganda. It is also spoken in South Sudan in Magwi County, Eastern Equatoria.
Peter Nazareth is a Ugandan-born literary critic and writer of fiction and drama.
The African Writers Series (AWS) is a collection of books written by African novelists, poets and politicians. Published by Heinemann, 359 books appeared in the series between 1962 and 2003.
Joseph Coleman de Graft was a prominent Ghanaian writer, playwright and dramatist, who was appointed the first director of the Ghana Drama Studio in 1962. He produced and directed plays for radio, stage and television, as well as acting, and was also a poet and educator.
John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo was a Nigerian poet and playwright, who also published as J. P. Clark and John Pepper Clark.
Heinemann is a publisher of professional resources and a provider of educational services established in 1978 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as a U.S. subsidiary of Heinemann UK. Today, the UK education imprint is owned by Pearson, the UK trade publications are owned by Penguin Random House and the US education imprint is owned by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Timothy Wangusa is a Ugandan poet and novelist. Wangusa was chairman of Uganda Writers Association and founder president of International PEN Uganda Centre.
Elvania Namukwaya Zirimu was a Ugandan poet and dramatist. She formed the Ngoma Players, with the policy of writing and producing Ugandan plays, and was actively concerned with the National Theatre. She belonged to the early generation of English-language Ugandan writers and playwrights that includes novelist Okello Oculi, playwright John Ruganda, and novelist Austin Bukenya. Her best-known work is the one-act play Keeping up with the Mukasas, included in David Cook's 1965 anthology of East African plays, Origin East Africa.
Simon E. Gikandi is a Kenyan Literature Professor and Postcolonial scholar. He is the Robert Schirmer Professor of English at Princeton University. He is perhaps best known for his co-editorship of The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature. He has also done important work on the modern African novel, and two distinguished African novelists: Chinua Achebe and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. In 2019 he became the president of the Modern Language Association.
Steve Bernard Miles Chimombo was a Malawian writer, poet, editor and teacher. He was born in Zomba.
Cosmo George Leipoldt Pieterse is a South African playwright, actor, poet, literary critic and anthologist.
Miles Allday Lee, later Miles Ahmed Lee, FRSA was a British puppeteer and radio producer. While working for Radio Uganda, he played an important role in the encouragement of East African literature. Paul Theroux recalled him in memorable terms:
I knew the producer, Miles Lee, an authentic Gypsy whose training for Radio Uganda consisted of working for many years as a fortuneteller at the Goose Fair in Nottingham. He too had become a Muslim, changing his middle name, Allday, to Ahmed... He was another one who said, 'Of course Muslims can drink. But not during prayers.'
Robert Bellarmino Serumaga was a Ugandan playwright. He was also an important political figure in Uganda during the late 1970s, being the leader and co-founder of the Uganda Nationalist Organization militant group and Minister of Commerce in the government of President Yusuf Lule.
Peter K. Palangyo was a Tanzanian novelist and diplomat. His reputation rests on a single novel, Dying in the Sun (1968), which is considered by many to be one of the most compelling works of modernism in African writing from this period.
Austin Bukenya is a Ugandan poet, playwright, novelist and academic administrator. He is the author of the novel The People's Bachelor, and a play, The Bride. He has taught languages, literature and drama at Makerere University in Uganda and universities in the UK, Tanzania and Kenya since the late 1960s. He has also held residences at universities in Rwanda and Germany. Bukenya is also a literary critic, novelist, poet and dramatist. An accomplished stage and screen actor, he was for several years Director of the Creative and Performing Arts Centre at Kenyatta University, Nairobi.
Lubwa p'Chong was a Ugandan playwright and poet. He founded and edited Nanga, the magazine of the National Teachers College, Kampala, and edited Dhana, the Makerere University literary magazine. His poetry has appeared in East African magazines and anthologies.
Arthur Gakwandi is a novelist, short story writer and diplomat. He wrote "Kosiya Kifefe", the fifth work of literature written by a Ugandan to feature on the Ugandan syllabus since independence. He is a lecturer in the Literature Department at Makerere University. He was Commonwealth Writers Prize judge for Africa in 2008.
