Regional Programs > Africa > Next Story

Words From a Granary is the long-awaited sequel to A Woman's Voice. As we brainstormed on the title to give our second anthology of short stories, we came up with the word, "granary." In traditional Africa, no homestead is ever without a granary, and no granary is ever empty. A granary is a symbol of hope where there would be despair; it is a symbol of promise in what would be a hopeless situation. Likewise, Ugandan women writers refuse to be discouraged by the appalling lack of a reading culture in the country. They keep wielding their pens, churning out more and more reading material in the hope that one day, our people will realize that reading is the backbone of intellectual empowerment and an integral part of development.

In our call for short stories to be published in an anthology, emphasis was put on originality, creativity and readability. No thematic restrictions were set, leaving the choice of topics to the authors. The results were not disappointing: more than thirty short stories were received, out of which fifteen were selected.

The anthology is the outcome of a three-year program of training workshops geared towards equipping creative women writers with writing skills. It was made possible through the financial support of our founders, HIVOS, who sponsored the training workshops as well as the publication of the book.

Many thanks go to the writers, too, for their commitment to the promotion of the reading culture in the country by contributing to the scanty reading material.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge the great effort put in by members of the FEMRlTE Editorial Board to bring the stories to the required standard. These are:

Mary Karooro Okurut
Hilda Twongyeirwe Rutagonya
Ayeta Anne Wangusa
Winnie Munyarugerero

Violet Barungi
Editor