Love, Sex and Religion Under Idi Amin: Doreen Baingana Talks About Tropical Fish
Ugandan author Doreen Baingana was quizzed about her collection of short stories, Tropical Fish, at a reading she gave in Abuja last week.
In a report on the event, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim says that Tropical Fish, which interlinks the stories of three sisters growing up in the era of Idi Amin, “touches on love, sex, AIDS, religion, the challenges of being a woman and a sense of displacement”.
At the reading Baingana revealed that she had a surprisingly “normal childhood” growing up in Amin’s dictatorship. While Tropical Fish brings awareness to issues such as AIDS, Baingana says she deliberately tried to show that Africans also have “universal concerns”, like “being dumped by lovers and broken toys”.
Doreen Baingana’s Tropical Fish, her award winning debut collection of short stories has been around for a while now since its publication in 2005 but the literati in Abuja got a fresh offering when the Ugandan author read at Infusion Thursday night.
Baingana, who is in Nigeria as the first foreign writer at the Ebedi Writers’ residency made the long trip from Iseyin, Oyo State to grace the event in the capital.
The reading at JB’s Bar and Grill, Maitama was as relaxed as always, with many trooping in to pick the brain of the Commonwealth Writers Prize winner and have a better understanding of why she chose to write about Uganda under the shadow of Idi Amin.
Book details
- Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana
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EAN: 9780767925105
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- Seventh Street Alchemy: A Selection of Works from the Caine Prize for African Writing by Doreen Baingana, Brian Chikwava, Monica Arac de Nyeko
EAN: 9781770091450
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Apr
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