Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian playwright, literary historian, novelist, and screenwriter. Her 2010 novel Room was a finalist for the Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Donoghue's 1995 novel Hood won the Stonewall Book Award and Slammerkin (2000) won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards. Room was adapted by Donoghue into a film of the same name. For this, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The Last King of Scotland is a 2006 historical drama film directed by Kevin Macdonald from a screenplay by Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock. Based on Giles Foden's 1998 novel, its plot depicts the dictatorship of Ugandan President Idi Amin through the perspective of Nicholas Garrigan, a fictional Scottish doctor. The film stars Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, and Gillian Anderson. The title of the film refers to Amin's spurious claim of being the King of Scotland.
Glaydah Namukasa is a Ugandan writer and midwife. She is the author of two novels, Voice of a Dream and Deadly Ambition. She is a member of FEMRITE, the Ugandan Women Writer's Association, and is currently (2014) its Chairperson. She is one of the 39 African writers announced as part of the Africa39 project unveiled by Rainbow, Hay Festival and Bloomsbury Publishing at the London Book Fair 2014. It is a list of 39 of Sub-Saharan Africa's most promising writers under the age of 40.
Doreen Baingana is a Ugandan writer. Her short story collection, Tropical Fish, won the Grace Paley Award for Short Fiction in 2003 and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best first book, Africa Region in 2006. Stories in it were finalists for the Caine Prize in 2004 and 2005. She was a Caine Prize finalist for the third time in 2021 and has received many other awards listed below.
FEMRITE – Uganda Women Writers' Association, founded in 1995, is an NGO based in Kampala, Uganda, whose programmes focus on developing and publishing women writers in Uganda and—more recently—in the East African region. FEMRITE has likewise expanded its concerns to East African issues regarding the environment, literacy, education, health, women's rights and good governance.
Goretti Kyomuhendo is a Ugandan novelist and literary activist. A participant at the inaugural International Literature Festival Berlin in 2001, Kyomuhendo has been internationally recognised for her novels such as Waiting: A Novel of Uganda's Hidden War. She was the first Programmes Coordinator for FEMRITE—Uganda Women Writers Association, from 1997 to 2007. She founded the African Writers Trust in 2009, after her relocation to London, Great Britain, in 2008.
Christine Sneed is an American author — the novels Little Known Facts (2013), Paris, He Said (2015), and Please Be Advised (2022), and the story collections Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry (2010), The Virginity of Famous Men (2016), and Direct Sunlight (2023) — as well as a graduate-level fiction professor at Northwestern University who also teaches in Regis University's low-residency MFA program. She is the recipient of the Chicago Public Library Foundation's 21st Century Award, the John C. Zacharis First Book Award, the Society of Midland Authors Award, the 2009 AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, and the Chicago Writers' Association Book of the Year Award in both 2011 and 2017.
Beatrice Lamwaka is a Ugandan writer. She was shortlisted for the 2011 Caine Prize for her story "Butterfly Dreams".
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a Ugandan-British novelist and short story writer. Her doctoral novel, The Kintu Saga, was shortlisted and won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013. It was published by Kwani Trust in 2014 under the title Kintu. Her short story collection, Manchester Happened, was published in 2019. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story "Let's Tell This Story Properly", and emerged Regional Winner, Africa region. She was the Overall Winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She was longlisted for the 2014 Etisalat Prize for Literature. She is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. In 2018, she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize in the fiction category. In 2021, her novel The First Woman won the Jhalak Prize.
Ber Anena born and previously published as Harriet Anena is a Ugandan writer and performer, whose writing includes poetry, nonfiction and fiction. She is the author of a collection of poems, A Nation In Labour, published in 2015, won the 2018 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. The Economist described her poetry performance as "an arresting evocation of love and war".
Namwali Serpell is an American and Zambian writer who teaches in the United States. In April 2014, she was named on Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Her short story "The Sack" won the 2015 Caine Prize for African fiction in English. In 2020, Serpell won the Belles-lettres category Grand Prix of Literary Associations 2019 for her debut novel The Old Drift.
Alexandra Kleeman is an American writer. Winner of the 2020 Rome Prize, her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf Hon. FRSL is a Nigerian academic, writer and editor from Lagos, Nigeria. She co-founded the publishing company Cassava Republic Press in 2006, in Abuja with Jeremy Weate. Cassava Republic Press was created with a focus on affordability, the need to find and develop local talent, and to publish African writers too often celebrated only in Europe and America. Bakare-Yusuf was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2019, as well as having been selected as a Yale World Fellow, a Desmond Tutu Fellow and a Frankfurt Book Fair Fellow.
Meri Nana-Ama Danquah is a Ghanaian-American writer, editor, journalist and public speaker, whose name at birth was Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Brobby. She is best known for her 1998 memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression. Her short story "When a Man Loves a Woman" was shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing.
Yemisi Aribisala is a Nigerian essayist, writer, painter, and food memoirist. She has been described as having a "fearless, witty, and unapologetic voice" Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, Vogue magazine, Chimurenga, Popula, Google Arts & Culture, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Critical Muslim 26: Gastronomy, Sandwich Magazine , The Guardian (UK), Aké Review, and Olongo Africa.
Yewande Omotoso is a South African-based novelist, architect and designer, who was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria. She currently lives in Johannesburg. Her two published novels have earned her considerable attention, including winning the South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author, being shortlisted for the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the M-Net Literary Awards 2012, and the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature, and being longlisted for the 2017 Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction. She is the daughter of Nigerian writer Kole Omotoso, and the sister of filmmaker Akin Omotoso.
Rosemary Bikaako Tumusiime is a Ugandan marketing professional, public administrator, feminist and politician. She is the elected Member of Parliament for Entebbe Municipality and is a representative for NRM, the ruling political party in Uganda. She is the first female representative for the constituency in over three decades and succeeded Muhammad Kawuma who served for two consecutive terms from 2006 to 2016. In the 10th Parliament, she serves as a member of the Committee on Equal Opportunities and the Committee on Presidential Affairs. She is also a member of the NRM Parliamentary Caucus, the Buganda Parliamentary Caucusand the treasurer of the Network for African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians (NAWMP).
Zinzi Clemmons is an American writer. She is known for her 2017 debut novel What We Lose.
Doreen Kabareebe is a Ugandan fashion model, socialite, branding coach and social media influencer. She was one of the contestants in the Miss Uganda beauty pageant in 2010.
