ISBN 9789966467201
Pages 188
Dimensions 203 x 127 mm
Published 1988
Publisher East African Educational Publishers, Kenya
Format Paperback

Two Songs: Song of Prisoner & Song of Malaya

by Okot p'Bitek

Poet, philosopher and artist, these poems from the distinguished Ugandan writer won the 1972 Kenyatta Prize for Literature.

Song of Prisoner confronts the tragedy of Africa's decade of freedom. He traverses the whole spectrum of her political sickness and contrasts it with the enduring reality of the bush - roots of family and clan, and the optimism of Africa's children in the face of hunger, hardship and humiliation. Song of MalayaI, in lighter vein and contrast, is a harshly beautiful, lusty farce about the hypocrisy and cant of Africa's modern moralists.

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About the Author

Okot p'Bitek

Okot p'Bitek was a Ugandan poet, who achieved wide international recognition for Song of Lawino, a long poem dealing with the tribulations of a rural African wife whose husband has taken up urban life and wishes everything to be westernised. Song of Lawino was originally written in Acholi language, and self-translated to English, and published in 1966. It was a breakthrough work, creating an audience amongst anglophone Africans for direct, topical poetry in English; and incorporating traditional attitudes and thinking in an accessible yet faithful literary vehicle. It was followed by the pendant Song of Ocol (1970), the husband's reply.

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