Book Review
A Nation In Labour
by Harriet Anena
Aflika Books, 40,000shs
Seven years ago, a little precious thing in form of a book was born out of the beautiful and intricate mind of one of Uganda‘s greatest poets from Gulu District, Northern Uganda. Penned in 2015, A Nation In Labour, a little tiny treasure of poetry about the battle between our conscience and social and political truths, won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa in 2018.
In the beautiful forward of the book by the famous Prof. Laba Erapu of Bishop Stuart University, Mbarara, he warns, “People looking for obvious answers should not read poems.” This is so because of the sharp analysis in Harriet Anena’s verse, a humble spirit that has taken the time to feel the coldness of the Republic of Uganda, the tumbling down of the landslides of Bududa unto our weak backs, the sharp Nails of the past of our Nation that we have to walk on, the sounds of a throbbing hungry stomach, the carrying around of traumas in form of rotten forgiveness, the shackles of dowry in our society, the draining out of wetlands to make way for shopping malls, the roaring of AK47 in our land, the torture of empty pockets and the January Blues, the evils of colonialism, disease and war.
Harriet is not only humble enough to listen, and feel but intelligent enough to give us some sort of instruction, a course of action. She calls us to unearth the laughter that lies cold inside, not to give up hope, to learn to flee, to breath air undefiled & live life unpolluted. To endeavor to salvage the last drop of life.
A female prostitute, “Malaya,” digging into the walls of her prison, the so called Kiwani love, disobedient women to their men, women in black dresses, waltzing tongues of passion, Valentines Day memoirs, Harriet Anena is not only stuck on the dark image of the Political Returnee or the dark thrilling image of A Nation fighting post-colonial demons, trying to forge a future that’s gone askew, the little book is filled with passion, seduction, and lines that are so well written you get that’s good tingly feeling of consuming well versed poetry.
It’s not enough to call Harriet Anena an intelligent writer, she is a witty woman, thoughtful woman who knows the way around her craft. In the poem l Bow for my Boobs, her satirical intellectual mastery comes through, she prays to her breasts, touchingly them, whispering, so they’re can turn into stones, to pelt her drunkard husband Ojok and send I’m too his grave, Anena wants to use her boobs as a weapon of destruction.
This is a book in celebration of anyone who hasn’t suffered the traumas of war, a book for the Acholi child who live-streams in IDP camps, year in, year out, a book in memory they children who died of the Nodding Syndrome in Northern Uganda, a book for the people of Pagak, Unyama Camp, Laliya Village, Adak, Gulu town and the rest of the world that is interested in a good Ugandan poetry classic book.
Review by Bridget Nakuya, founder and C.E.O of The Africanstar Review.