Activities
- Training women writers to improve their writing skills.
- Publishing New Era—a quarterly English language
magazine.
- Promoting a reading and writing culture in Uganda through
an annual week of activities.
- Networking nationally and internationally.
- Publishing literature by its members.
- Developing a women's resource centre to provide space
and opportunity for members to write and read.
History and Achievements
Since its inception in 1996, FEMRITE has published nine books
of poetry and short stories by its members. It also publishes
New Era, a quarterly publication whose sections include
Children's World, Culture, Gender Wars, Growing Up, Parenting,
and Relationships. In partnership with the Alliance Française,
Femrite has also published the first Directory of Ugandan
Writers, which includes biographical data, pictures, and
short extracts from Uganda's creative writers, living and
dead, including those born or living elsewhere.
Femrite's programs include: a Women's Resource Centre and
a Readers and Writers Club. The Resource Centre accepts book
and magazine donations and is a safe place where women writers
can work. At the Readers/Writers Club, new and established
writers meet every Monday night to read and discuss their
work, giving and receiving comments, criticisms, and encouragement.
Both these programs are so much in demand that FEMRITE is
already faced with the challenge of finding a more ample space
to accommodate all who are interested.
Publications from the Femrite Catalogue
African
Voices
For ordering information on the following publications, contact
Femrite.
SHORT STORIES
A Woman's Voice, edited by Mary Karooro Okurut
This first short story anthology by Uganda Women Writers contains
twelve stories that illuminate the courage and endurance of
Ugandan women in the face of hardship and social injustice.
Words From A Granary, published in 2001,
is the long-awaited sequel to A Woman's Voice.
Presenting work by new members of Femrite as well as writers
who are better known, this collection of fifteen short stories
offers readers a glimpse into the lives of ordinary Ugandans
living through often extraordinary circumstances.
POETRY
The African Saga, by Susan N. Kiguli
This first volume, containing eighty-one poems, was the winner
of both the Editors Choice Award of the USA National Library
of Poetry and the National Book Trust of Uganda Best Poetry
Award 1999.
No Hearts at Home, by Christine Oryema-Lalobo
Lalobo points out the cancerous effects of war in this long
poem, which is her major literary work. In a harsh, pure,
provocative voice, she exposes the anguish and torture of
children in wartime and puts an entire country on trial.
NOVELS
Secrets no More, by Goretti Kyomuhendo
Vividly and imaginatively written, this novel of the genocide
in Rwanda evokes emotions of outrage, repulsion, pity, and
admiration. Kyomuhendo is an Honorary Fellow of Creative Writing
at the University of Iowa, in the USA, and is presently the
FEMRITE Coordinator.
A Season of Mirth, by Regina Amollo
Written in simple language, embellished with folk proverbs,
A Season of Mirth evokes a sense of the rural tranquillity
and bliss of the Ugandan past. Amollo is a pediatric nurse
who writes fiction in her spare time.
The Invisible Weevil, by Mary Karooro
Okurut.
The Invisible Weevil is a fictionalized record of Uganda's
tragic national experience with HIV/AIDS. The author was voted
Uganda's top woman writer in 1998 by The New Vision
national newspaper. She is also a celebrated columnist, a
former literature lecturer at Makerere University, and the
founder of FEMRITE.
Memoirs of a Mother, by Ayeta Anne Wangusa
This first-person narrative is an engrossing tale of a Ugandan
woman forced to trade the romantic idealism of her youth for
a mundane marriage based on outmoded rules and obligations.
The need to balance social respectability with the dictates
of her heart leads to painful self-discoveries which finally
force her to assert her individuality against oppressive social
norms.
Cassandra, by Violet Barungi
A moving, intricately woven story of a girl learning to balance
gender roles in a positive attempt to transform society. The
author is a celebrated writer whose play, "Over My Dead
Body," won a British Council International New Playwriting
Award for Africa and the Middle East Region in 1997. Her novel
The Shadow and the Substance appeared in 1998 and a
children's book, Tit for Tat, was self-published in
1997. Barungi is currently working on a new novel Belated
Harvest.
Silent Patience, by Jane Kaberuka
Kaberuka's third novel, Silent Patience, is an account
of domestic life, raising questions about some of Uganda's
traditional societal values through characters who are larger
than life. Kaberuka is also a newspaper columnist. Has
God Forgotten Me (1990) and It's Natural, Darling
(1991) are her other published books.
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