Moses Isegawa
Author of Abyssinian Chronicles
About the Author
Works by Moses Isegawa
Abessijnse kronieken 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Isegawa, Moses
- Other names
- Sey Wava
- Birthdate
- 1963-08-10
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Makerere
- Occupations
- history teacher
author - Short biography
- When I was 15, I decided to become a writer. I had fallen in love with books at six and I believed it was enough to catapult me into a dream world inhabited by the gods of the letters. I marveled at what these people could do with words, the ease with which they thrust me into a rollercoaster of emotion. I wanted to be near them, or have their shadow fall on me as they passed. It helped that I had never met any writer in the flesh, content with their pictures on the blurb page. I ran on the fuel of faith, dismissing any misgivings about my prospects with yet more faith.
In 1990, I left my native Uganda and went to Holland to pursue my dream. I still had no idea what writers ate or how they carried themselves. All I knew was that I wanted to create a world out of words and since I had run short of books to read because of the economic situation obtaining at the time, I had decided to go where I believed were countless books to devour and publishers to send manuscripts. Books I found in plenty, publishers proved rather scarce. I kept plugging away at my manuscript and after four years of labor, I got a publisher. Abyssinian Chronicles introduced me to readers and I could no longer come undone by confrontation with reality. The fact that no big book was expected to come out of Uganda; and that few first novels ever got the kind of publicity mine got. The fact that most writers can’t live off their pen; all those facts came after I had published my book to rave reviews. I had escaped and I was glad I had not become a casualty of reason.
Copyright © 2006 Moses Isegawa. All rights reserved. - Nationality
- Uganda
Netherlands (naturalized) - Birthplace
- Kampala, Uganda
- Places of residence
- Uganda
Amsterdam, Netherlands - Associated Place (for map)
- Uganda
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Reviews
In Moses Isegawa's riveting first novel, the writing is big, but the story is even bigger. It is a coming of age chronicle of post-colonial Ugandan history, as told by the narrator, who is also coming of age, Mugezi. Isegawa candidly touches on many subjects: Obote, Idi Amin, civil wars, corruption, rapes, religion, party politics, the AIDS epidemic, culture, tradition, morals, and community folklore. While much of the novel contains serious subject matter, humorous sections are abundant, show more and I found myself laughing out loud periodically. Early on, the author spectacularly foreshadows the deaths of two main characters, and clear parallels are drawn between the dictators of the era and the culture of the home. The text is ornate and difficult at times, but it reads like a classic. I picked out this novel, since I have traveled to Uganda, and after having read it, Isegawa is now on my list of favorite authors. show less
Set in the 1970's during the brutal regime of Idi Amin, Snakepit (2004) by Moses Isegawa is my Around the World for a Good Book selection for Uganda. The novel tells the story of Bat, a young man returning to Uganda after getting an education at Cambridge University. He figures that a government job in this lawless, emerging nation will be a great way to get rich quick. While you can't say that the ethically-challenged Bat is naive, he is certainly unprepared for the way things in work in show more Uganda and over the course of the novel ends up facing a great deal of suffering at the hands of his new enemies.
The landscape of Ugandan politics and military rule include General Bazooka, Bat's superior who has fallen out of favor with Amin. In between orgies of sex and drugs, Bazooka tries to regain his position through intimidation, imprisonment, torture, and murder of, well, just about anyone. While Bazooka has it out for Bat from the beginning, his main rival is the Englishman Robert Ashes who has won Amin's affections. Hard to believe it but Ashes is even more brutal in his methods, making Uganda his post-colonial playground. All through the story there are gun battles on the street as various military and para-military forces abuse the citizenry and battle with one another.
This is a really unsettling book to read. Page after page details characters stating in vulgar terms what they wish to do to their rivals and then doing it: torture, rape, murder, you name it. Reading each page is like having someone rub your skin with a piece of sandpaper until it is raw and oozing, and turning the page is like asking them to pour lemon juice on it. The writing style is a bit disjointed and uneven, but I guess overall it gives a sense of the rough and wild times Uganda in the 1970's. show less
The landscape of Ugandan politics and military rule include General Bazooka, Bat's superior who has fallen out of favor with Amin. In between orgies of sex and drugs, Bazooka tries to regain his position through intimidation, imprisonment, torture, and murder of, well, just about anyone. While Bazooka has it out for Bat from the beginning, his main rival is the Englishman Robert Ashes who has won Amin's affections. Hard to believe it but Ashes is even more brutal in his methods, making Uganda his post-colonial playground. All through the story there are gun battles on the street as various military and para-military forces abuse the citizenry and battle with one another.
This is a really unsettling book to read. Page after page details characters stating in vulgar terms what they wish to do to their rivals and then doing it: torture, rape, murder, you name it. Reading each page is like having someone rub your skin with a piece of sandpaper until it is raw and oozing, and turning the page is like asking them to pour lemon juice on it. The writing style is a bit disjointed and uneven, but I guess overall it gives a sense of the rough and wild times Uganda in the 1970's. show less
As much as I loved the first half of this book, the fact that I almost quit reading it several times through the second half after it lost nearly all its steam made me dislike it far more than I should.
After reading The Last King of Scotland not long ago, I thought I'd try a different take on the 70s situation in Uganda. This one focused more on the citizens than it did on the government, specifically a narrator who grew up through the dictatorship and government overthrows.
The book starts show more off explaining the background information on the narrator's family, including his father and grandfather, in their small village. The first half of the book is almost strictly on the narrator's life and his family. The accounts of his daily life both in the village and in Kampala and the Seminary are both interesting and funny, since the narrator tends to enjoy outsmarting people who he disagrees with.
The government situation doesn't enter into the first part much at all save for when it directly affects the family's life, such as the house his mother and father get in Kampala or his father's position at work.
Once the character leaves the seminary, the second half of the book focuses heavily on the fighting between guerrilla and government soldiers and the effects on the country at large. This part was much less interesting since the narrator was playing very little part in what was going on.
The second half of the book is actually quite difficult to get through because of this. It also doesn't help that the time period for all the events is fairly unclear through the entire novel, as is the age of the narrator. Occasionally the year is brought up, and occasionally Mugezi's age is also mentioned, but it's really hard to tell how much time is passing once he leaves the seminary.
The final "book" was fairly interesting and entertaining once again, when the narrator leaves Uganda and winds up in Amsterdam. It seemed like the storytelling worked best when only dealing with a narrow thread of events and people.
The writing style also got on my nerves sometimes. There are copious, flowery descriptions of everything. At one point, the description of a plane ride and Mugezi's mindset takes up three or four pages.
Even as interested as I was in the history in the book, and as much as I liked the main character and his family, I just could not bring myself to like this book in the end. show less
After reading The Last King of Scotland not long ago, I thought I'd try a different take on the 70s situation in Uganda. This one focused more on the citizens than it did on the government, specifically a narrator who grew up through the dictatorship and government overthrows.
The book starts show more off explaining the background information on the narrator's family, including his father and grandfather, in their small village. The first half of the book is almost strictly on the narrator's life and his family. The accounts of his daily life both in the village and in Kampala and the Seminary are both interesting and funny, since the narrator tends to enjoy outsmarting people who he disagrees with.
The government situation doesn't enter into the first part much at all save for when it directly affects the family's life, such as the house his mother and father get in Kampala or his father's position at work.
Once the character leaves the seminary, the second half of the book focuses heavily on the fighting between guerrilla and government soldiers and the effects on the country at large. This part was much less interesting since the narrator was playing very little part in what was going on.
The second half of the book is actually quite difficult to get through because of this. It also doesn't help that the time period for all the events is fairly unclear through the entire novel, as is the age of the narrator. Occasionally the year is brought up, and occasionally Mugezi's age is also mentioned, but it's really hard to tell how much time is passing once he leaves the seminary.
The final "book" was fairly interesting and entertaining once again, when the narrator leaves Uganda and winds up in Amsterdam. It seemed like the storytelling worked best when only dealing with a narrow thread of events and people.
The writing style also got on my nerves sometimes. There are copious, flowery descriptions of everything. At one point, the description of a plane ride and Mugezi's mindset takes up three or four pages.
Even as interested as I was in the history in the book, and as much as I liked the main character and his family, I just could not bring myself to like this book in the end. show less
First published in dutch in 1998 under the title Abessijnse Kronieken, this book soon achieved notority, and a number of translations into several european languages, including this portuguese one, have been printed. Several critics have claimed this novel a landmark in african literature and a book of universal import. Whatever the veredict of time concerning its standing as part of the canon, this is certainly a powerful novel, telling the saga of a Ugandan man (the narrator) and of his show more family through the last half of the twentieth century. A grand canvas of live in Uganda, but also a mirror of a large part of sub-saharian Africa: a blunt tale of misery, despair, hope and achievement amid a turbulent childhood, a castrating Catholic education, brutal dictatorships, mercyless wars, and the wretch brought about by the AIDS epidemic. Written in a lively style evoking powerful images, one reads quickly and effortlessly through the five hundred plus pages of this absorbing book just to feel sad when it finally ends... show less
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