They were Ugandan - Surumani Manzi

How does one recount the ineffable? How do we confine the borderless, or delineate the nebulous? How do you fit the boundless and immeasurable into the finite geometry of language?

In They Were Ugandan, Surumani sets out to chart these strange, high seas of one people's narrative.

In the tales bottled within the papery sheaf you now hold, the anatomy of 21st Century Uganda is mapped, and an undeniably brave attempt is made to weave the beadwork of social commentary onto the slippery tapestry of fiction.

This collection dares to present imaginaries of a land where war and love seek proximate seats at the common table of a fragile post-colony; and upon whose fabled savannahs life unveils facets of itself whose beauty is deceptive, if not unpleasant.

The stories aspire to lament tragedies whose sorrow seizes entire communities in the clench of a tremulous fist, yet whose joys emerge from between the curled fingers like rays of rebellious light.