Namuli’s journey to self-discovery
Feb 10, 2005
Patricia Haward’s<i> Do I Have to Kneel?,</i> is a fictionalised, but thinly-disguised biography of a talented Ugandan woman
BOOK REVIEW
Title: Do I have to kneel?
Author: Patricia Haward
Publisher: Fountain Publishers
Available at: All bookshops
around town
Reviewer: Austin Bukenya
Patricia Haward’s Do I Have to Kneel?, is a fictionalised, but thinly-disguised biography of a talented Ugandan woman, Losira Namuli, who grew up after the second world war. As Uganda hurtles into the independence struggle, the brief spell of real democracy in the early sixties and into the chaos that culminates in the Idi Amin ruin, Namuli weaves her wide-eyed way from Ssese Islands through the best colonial education to the heights of professional and creative excellence, and even an ambassadorial appointment.
The toughest challenges to Namuli’s self-discovery and realisation arise from her own heart. For Do I have to Kneel? Is not only a story of growth and discovery. It is also a poignant love story, or rather, a series of love stories, dominated by Namuli’s heart-wrenching attachment to Akojo, an ex-Catholic cleric whose scholarly refinement and vibrant dramatic artistry are the epitome of all that Namuli seems to love and desire in life.
It is a complicated romance and, indeed, its complication are the fabric of which a lot of the narrative is made. Namuli is not only a dyed-in-the-wool Muganda but also a born and bred CMS’ Anglican, while Akojo is, a Catholic insider and from Ankole. If these things do not matter that much today, they did a lot in the late fifties and early sixties.
Add the potentially conflicting professional and academic interests of the lovers, even after they are married, the economic challenges of 1970s, the neuroses about how much quality time they could afford together, and the ever present threat to stray into infidelity, and you have a veritable cauldron of an affair.
But Patricia Haward enriches the narrative even further, first through a convincing re-creation of the atmosphere and setting of the times she describes and secondly through a shrewd insight into the minds of the characters she presents. The reader is immersed in the historical reality of the late 1950s to 1970s. particularly touching is Haward’s recall of the vibrancy of Makerere and Kampala as the cultural and literary hub of East Africa in the first decade of independence.
The text is teeming with not only the landmark cultural events of the time, like the publication of p’Bitek’s Lawino in 1966, but also with the names of the key players in the cultural buoyancy of the times, some of them departed, like the fictionalised Namuli and Akojo, but many still alive and eminent in various fields, ranging from Ben Mkapa and Ngugi wa Thiong’o to our own Richard Ntiru, Nuwa Sentongo and John Nagenda!
Haward’s main concern, however, seems to be how the human relationships, whether of profession, art, friendship or love, helped her characters to survive the perils of the times.
This is where she delves delicately into the minds and hearts of Namuli, Akojo and the rest of her cast to dissect what motives, frightens, sustains and even destroys them. Do I Have to Kneel? Is the restrained but fluent narrative language in which it is couched. Haward’s prose combines a native and trained competence with a shrewd ability to reflect the tunes and rhythms of the Ugandan variety of English.
But maybe, what Do I Have to Kneel? Finally betrays is Haward’s own enduring love affair with Uganda and with the exciting decades during which she did a lot of living and self-discovery. She almost certainly appears in the narrative as one of Namuli's confidants.
Obviously, she loved and was loved, and the progeny is this hear-warming narrative.
Title: Do I have to kneel?
Author: Patricia Haward
Publisher: Fountain Publishers
Available at: All bookshops
around town
Reviewer: Austin Bukenya
Patricia Haward’s Do I Have to Kneel?, is a fictionalised, but thinly-disguised biography of a talented Ugandan woman, Losira Namuli, who grew up after the second world war. As Uganda hurtles into the independence struggle, the brief spell of real democracy in the early sixties and into the chaos that culminates in the Idi Amin ruin, Namuli weaves her wide-eyed way from Ssese Islands through the best colonial education to the heights of professional and creative excellence, and even an ambassadorial appointment.
The toughest challenges to Namuli’s self-discovery and realisation arise from her own heart. For Do I have to Kneel? Is not only a story of growth and discovery. It is also a poignant love story, or rather, a series of love stories, dominated by Namuli’s heart-wrenching attachment to Akojo, an ex-Catholic cleric whose scholarly refinement and vibrant dramatic artistry are the epitome of all that Namuli seems to love and desire in life.
It is a complicated romance and, indeed, its complication are the fabric of which a lot of the narrative is made. Namuli is not only a dyed-in-the-wool Muganda but also a born and bred CMS’ Anglican, while Akojo is, a Catholic insider and from Ankole. If these things do not matter that much today, they did a lot in the late fifties and early sixties.
Add the potentially conflicting professional and academic interests of the lovers, even after they are married, the economic challenges of 1970s, the neuroses about how much quality time they could afford together, and the ever present threat to stray into infidelity, and you have a veritable cauldron of an affair.
But Patricia Haward enriches the narrative even further, first through a convincing re-creation of the atmosphere and setting of the times she describes and secondly through a shrewd insight into the minds of the characters she presents. The reader is immersed in the historical reality of the late 1950s to 1970s. particularly touching is Haward’s recall of the vibrancy of Makerere and Kampala as the cultural and literary hub of East Africa in the first decade of independence.
The text is teeming with not only the landmark cultural events of the time, like the publication of p’Bitek’s Lawino in 1966, but also with the names of the key players in the cultural buoyancy of the times, some of them departed, like the fictionalised Namuli and Akojo, but many still alive and eminent in various fields, ranging from Ben Mkapa and Ngugi wa Thiong’o to our own Richard Ntiru, Nuwa Sentongo and John Nagenda!
Haward’s main concern, however, seems to be how the human relationships, whether of profession, art, friendship or love, helped her characters to survive the perils of the times.
This is where she delves delicately into the minds and hearts of Namuli, Akojo and the rest of her cast to dissect what motives, frightens, sustains and even destroys them. Do I Have to Kneel? Is the restrained but fluent narrative language in which it is couched. Haward’s prose combines a native and trained competence with a shrewd ability to reflect the tunes and rhythms of the Ugandan variety of English.
But maybe, what Do I Have to Kneel? Finally betrays is Haward’s own enduring love affair with Uganda and with the exciting decades during which she did a lot of living and self-discovery. She almost certainly appears in the narrative as one of Namuli's confidants.
Obviously, she loved and was loved, and the progeny is this hear-warming narrative.