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]
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.
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]
Published works
Anthologies
Home Floats in the Distance. Wunderhorn; Auflage. 2012. ISBN978-3884234044.
"I laugh at Amin","My mother in three photographs" in Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva, ed. (2014). A thousand voices rising: An anthology of contemporary African poetry. BN Poetry Foundation. ISBN978-9970-9234-0-3. [23]
"Weeping landa" in Painted Voices: A collage of art and poetry, volume II. Femrite Publications. 2009. ISBN978-9970-700-18-9.
