Muniini K. Mulera

The Social Origins of Violence in Uganda, 1964-1985 – By A.B.K. Kasozi

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 10, 20190 comments

This is one of the most thorough and accessible examinations of Uganda’s post-independence violence and bloodshed. Professor Kasozi presents a compelling argument that the central problem has been social inequality, economic disparities, a culture of poor to absent conflict resolution ...

Origins of Kingship Traditions and Symbolism in the Great Lakes Region of Africa – By Birgitta Farelius (2008)

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 11, 20190 comments

Tradition holds that the foundation stone of the kingdoms of the Great Lakes Area was laid by the Bacwezi, a mysterious people that lived and ruled the area before disappearing “into the lake.” Central to the Bacwezi community and their descendants was the cow as an economic commodity, ...

Two Kings of Uganda, or Life by the Shores of Victoria Nyanza, Being an Account of a Residence of Six Years in Eastern Equatorial Africa - By Robert Pickering Ashe.

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 10, 20190 comments

Allowing for the biased lenses of a British missionary, this is a very informative account of Buganda in the period 1883-86. Originally published in 1889, the copy I have is a Second Edition (1971) with a very good introduction by John Rowe, a historian, which is itself a concise ...

Sir Apolo Kaggwa Discovers Britain – By Ham Mukasa

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 10, 20190 comments

Sir Apolo Kaggwa, the Katikkiro of Buganda from 1890 to 1926 was one of the most consequential leaders of the Twentieth Century. Ham Mukasa, his personal secretary, was one of the earliest people to receive formal education by the British. When he accompanied the Katikkiro to attend ...

King Leopold’s Ghost - By Adam Hochschild (1998)

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 10, 20190 comments

This is the history of the Congo Free State from first contact with the Europeans. It is a gripping and thorough account of how King Leopold II of Belgium turned that territory into the Heart of Darkness. Greed, human enslavement, a holocaust, extraordinary bestiality by the King’s ...

Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol - by Okot p'Bitek

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 9, 20190 comments

Here on your left Are the grinding stones The big one Ashen and dusty And her daughter Sitting in her belly Are the destroyers of millet Mixed with cassava And sorghum. The mother stone Has a hollow stomach A strange woman She never gets pregnant And ...

Heart of Darkness - By Joseph Conrad

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 9, 20190 comments

At once infuriating and thrilling, this is Joseph Conrad’s most famous and controversial novel. First published in 1902, Heart of Darkness paints an image of a tranquil Europe and a terrifying Africa, with an unmissable contrast between life on the safe River Thames and the dangerous ...

Things Fall Apart; No Longer At Ease; Arrow of God -By Chinua Achebe

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 9, 20190 comments

Things Fall Apart (1959): Repeated reading has not lessened my joy of opening the first page of Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece and getting immersed in the life of Okonkwo and his people in Umuofia. No Longer At Ease (1960): Obi. Western education. Africa in transition from colonial ...

God’s Bits of Wood - by Ousmane Sembene

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 9, 20190 comments

This is my top choice among the great novels from Africa. “The last rays of the sun filtered through a shredded lacework of clouds,” reads the first sentence of the novel. What follows is a brilliant telling of a story, based on the 1947-48 strike by the workers on the Dakar-Niger ...

A love of books -

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 7, 20190 comments

I grew up in houses where books were everywhere. In my early teens, my father, a bibliophile, told me to read “everything.” I took him literally. My passion for reading gained momentum at King's College, Budo, Uganda, where the Main Library was very well stocked with books, ...

Under the Jacaranda - by Joy Odera

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 7, 20190 comments

A great story about Serene, a modern woman that lives between Nairobi and Johannesburg. She recounts her present and recalls her past, effortlessly switching between the two periods. She reflects on her family, with its multiple challenges, including sibling tension and a secret ...

MOODY AWORI: An Autobiography - Riding on a Tiger

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 7, 20190 comments

This is a magisterial presentation of a man’s own story. Moody Awori, who served as Kenya’s Vice-President from 2003 t0 2009, bares all in this very well-written and detailed account of his triumphs and failures, pleasures and disappointments. A well-known businessman, Awori ...

The Bitter Bread of Exile - by A.B.K. Kasozi

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 7, 20190 comments

An excellent treatment of the tragic last years of Sir Edward Muteesa II, the former Kabaka of Buganda and First President of Uganda. Using original sources and personal interviews with people who were involved in the Kabaka’s escape in 1966 and his life in a London exile, Kasozi ...

The Bitter Bread of Exile - by A.B.K. Kasozi

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 7, 20190 comments

the CATCHER in the RYE

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksJanuary 7, 20190 comments

I first read this book in 1977 during my early days of exile. I was introduced to this classic book by Dr. John B. Masembe, my dear friend who was working at Nairobi Hospital. He had an exquisite taste for great literature and we spent many evenings chatting about Holden Caulfield, ...

Democracy: Mencken's thoughts on this incomparably idiotic and amusing system

By Muniini K. MuleraMy Kind of BooksNovember 10, 20160 comments

There once lived an American man called Henry Louis Mencken, one whose writings unfailingly give pleasure and annoyance; challenge received wisdom and expose his own dark views; and reveal a brilliant mind that breathed the English language. Reading Mencken tempts a newspaper columnist ...