Uganda

I am a writer and a journalist with Global Press Institute and with the Daily Monitor in Uganda. With the Monitor, I mainly write literature-related articles, because I want to give writers a voice. Without GPI, I would be a writer but not a journalist. I write for GPI because I am able to write about issues that are close to my heart. I’ve always wanted to voice people’s issues, because I think I have a gift that I can use. I deal with issues that are affecting my community that the mainstream media may have not given it big space or give it a human face.

I am currently studying for a master's in human rights in Makerere University. I am a recipient of 2011 Young Achievers Award in the category of Art, Culture and Fashion. I was a Laureate for the Council for the Development of Social Science (CODESRIA) Democratic Governance Institute 2010 in Dakar, Senegal. I was shortlisted for the prestigious 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing, a finalist for the PEN/Studzinski Literary Award 2009, and a fellow for the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in 2009, where I researched on land disputes in northern Uganda. I have worked as a researcher and teacher in Uganda; and in Italy and Sudan, I worked with an international humanitarian agency. I am working on my first novel, a number of short stories, and a series of children stories.

I was born and raised in Gulu, northern Uganda – an area which has been ravaged over two decades from the armed conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army and government of Uganda. It is a place that inspires me to write.