Different drums, same dance: Comparing Ugandan and Western writing

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OPINION

By Annabel Oyera

Stories are like rivers. They may start in different places, take different paths, but they all flow toward the same sea-human experience. When we compare Ugandan or African writing with Western writing, we are not comparing better or worse. We are comparing voices shaped by different histories, dreams, and ways of life. And in this difference, there is beauty.

Ugandan and African writers often draw from oral traditions. In villages and towns, stories were once passed down by word of mouth, by grandmothers under the moonlight and village elders by the fire. This tradition gives African writing a deep sense of rhythm, imagery, and community. Writers like Okot p’Bitek, with his Song of Lawino, showed how poetry could beat like a drum and speak for the soul of a people.

African stories often carry the voices of ancestors, nature, and the unseen. They speak of spirits, of land that feels alive, of family ties that go beyond blood. Even modern African authors like Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie hold this connection between old and new, between spoken word and written truth.

Western writing, especially the kind shaped by Europe and North America, often takes a more individual approach. It is about self-expression, inner conflict, and personal journey. It can be sharp, minimal, and focused on the mind. Writers like Ernest Hemingway cut their sentences like stone-short, hard, and clear.

The Western world also has a long written tradition, from Shakespeare to Dickens to modern voices like Sally Rooney. Their stories often explore personal identity, love, loss, and change in fast-moving societies. There is beauty in how exact they are, in how they show deep feelings with just one look or moment of silence.

Ugandan writing is rooted in community; Western writing often celebrates the individual. African stories may focus on “we,” while Western stories may ask, “who am I?” But both forms ask the same big questions: Why do we love? Why do we hurt? What does it mean to be human?

African writing dances with nature and history; Western writing walks through cities of thought and self. But both aim to touch hearts, to awaken minds.

As readers and as writers, we need both styles. The world is too big for only one voice. African writers remind us that we belong to something greater: family, tradition, and land. Western writers remind us to look inside, to question, to dream alone if we must.

When we read both, we grow. When we mix both, we create something new-African writers who write in English but think in Luganda, or Western writers who learn to slow down and listen to silence.

Ugandan and African writing is not in the shadow of the West. It is its own sun, its own sky. It does not need to compete. It needs to be heard. And when we read both African and Western stories, we do not choose sides. We sit at a bigger table, where many voices speak, and all are welcome.

Let us keep reading. Let us keep writing. And above all, let us keep listening.