Susan Nalugwa Kiguli | |
|---|---|
| Born | Susan Nalugwa Kiguli 24 June 1969 Luweero District, Uganda |
| Occupation | Academic, writer |
| Nationality | Ugandan |
| Alma mater | Makerere University, |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Notable works | The African Saga |
Susan Nalugwa Kiguli (born 24 June 1969 in Luweero District, Uganda) is a Ugandan poet and literary scholar. [1] She is an associate professor of literature at Makerere University. Kiguli has been an advocate for creative writing in Africa, including service as a founding member of FEMRITE, [2] a judge for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (African Region, 1999), and an advisory board member for the African Writers Trust. [3] As a poet, Kiguli is best known for her 1998 collection The African Saga , [4] [5] as a scholar, and for her work on oral poetry and performance. [6]
 | This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(June 2017) |
Kiguli has participated as a poet and reader in numerous literary festivals and conferences, including the International Literature Festival Berlin (2008); [1] the Poetry Africa Festival in Kwazulu–Natal, South Africa (2009); [8] the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya (2007); [5] and the Leeds Centre for African Studies, University of Leeds, United Kingdom (2005).
In addition to her critically acclaimed collection The African Saga, [9] which won the National Book Trust of Uganda Poetry Award (1999), [10] Kiguli has also written poems for children – four of which were featured by Books LIVE, as "Animal Portraits by Susan Kiguli (Note of Affection No. 4, Love Africa Carnival)" [11] and selected by readers as "one of the most loved Love Notes of its month." [12] Kiguli has discussed her own childhood reading experiences in an interview with BooksLIVE. [13]
Kiguli has also contributed poetry for children to the collection Michael's Eyes: The War against the Ugandan Child, [14] an international collaborative effort "intended to raise the global awareness of the situation in Northern Uganda," particularly concerning the troubles caused by the Lord's Resistance Army. [15]
Kiguli poem’s were also featured in Eye of the Storm: A Photographic Journey Across Uganda, [16] with photography by David Pluth and Pierre-Francois Didek.
Kiguli has also been featured by Ultra Violet: Indian feminists unplugged, [17] and by Department of English & Creative Writing, Lancaster University. [18] Her work is included in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa , edited by Margaret Busby. [19]
Praised by the poet and critic Alex Smith as "the leading intellectually astute voice in contemporary East African poetry," [12] Kiguli was an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow for 2010, with her research focusing on "Oral Poetry and Popular Song in South Africa and Uganda: A Study of Contemporary Performance.” [6]
On the same general topic, Kiguli’s recent intellectual contributions include “The Symbolism of Music Festivals in Buganda: The case of Ekitoobero and Enkuuka y’omwaka,” in Performing Community [20] (2008) and "Mapping the Dream of Cultural Continuity: Songs at Enkuuka y’omwaka” in Performing Change [21] (2009).
Alex Smith also found noteworthy Kiguli's comments on A Hundred Silences, [22] the third collection of poems by Gabeba Baderoon. [12]
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The African Saga is a collection of poems by Ugandan poet Susan Nalugwa Kiguli. Published in 1998, it won the National Book Trust of Uganda Poetry Award (1999), It is a collection of 95 poems in four sections: “Poems of Protest”, “Relational Poems”, “Poems of Nature” and “Existential Poems”.
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