Where do stories begin? Kampala writes LitFest -day one
This is the third edition of the Kampala Writes LitFest, and runs from Friday, August 28 to Sunday 30. The first one was held in 2024 at the Onomo Hotel, Nakasero; while last year’s was held at Makerere University’s Yusuf Lule Auditorium.
Dr Anna Adima (left) chats with keynote guest Prof. Chika Unigwe from Nigeria during the opening ceremony of the Kampala Writes LitFest at the National Theatre on Friday afternoon. (Photo by Kalungi Kabuye)
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For most of his working life, Ernest Bazanye was a journalist. But he didn’t like it very much, he said. Although he did reviews of people’s works and critiqued performances, he didn’t feel he was being fair to both them and himself.
“You can have a whole audience having a lot of fun, but then you go and write how the performer wasn’t impressive. Many years down the road, do you apologise for that? Do you look for this person and say, man I was sorry for that?”
Bazanye was speaking at the launch of two books as Day One of the 2026 Kampala Writes LitFest wound down at the National Theatre on Friday. His book ‘The Girl Child Has Seen Days’ was launched alongside Hadijja Nabunya Ssebunya’s ‘Instances of Exceptional Moments of Hunger’.
This year’s edition features 52 speakers, with 11 of them coming from outside Uganda. It has 12 panel discussions, workshops, masterclasses and author interviews. It also has an art installation by multimedia artist Sandra Suubi, which re-imagines Uganda’s independence ceremony as a wedding ceremony.
The festival is organised by Uganda German Cultural Society and curated by renowned Ugandan author Goretti Kyomuhendo. Other sponsors are the German Embassy, Caine Prize for African Writing, African Writers Trust and Jibu Water.
The theme this year is ‘Where Stories Begin: The Imaginary and the Art of Possibility’. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Kyomuhendo explained that the theme arose from the fact that storytelling has always been at the heart of the Ugandan identity.
The Keynote guest was Nigerian novelist and professor of creative writing Chika Unigwe. In a conversation with Dr Anna Andima, a writer and lecturer in Modern African History, Unigwe reiterated the freedom of writers to write rubbish, if they want. She cited Nollywood as not caring about the norms of international filmmaking.
An earlier panel on speculative fiction ended up as a discussion on the need for African writers to free themselves from the fetters of colonialism, decades after it actually ended in Africa.
There were performances by impressionist Dr Anna Grace Awilli and a dance routine choreographed by Lloyd Lutara.
The festival continues Saturday and Sunday at the National Theatre.