Uganda: Reading Okot P'bitek Through Eyes Taught to Look Away

Uganda: Reading Okot P'bitek Through Eyes Taught to Look Away

Analysis - In 1931, Okot p'Bitek was born in Gulu, northern Uganda. It is perhaps fitting that a man who would spend much of his life questioning what Africans had been taught to admire was himself born at a rather interesting intersection of worlds. His father, Jebedayo Opi, was a school teacher shaped by the colonial education system. His mother, Cerina Lacwaa, was an Acholi singer, dancer and storyteller, deeply rooted in the oral traditions …