John Ruganda Explained

John Ruganda (30 May 1941 to 8 December 2007) was Uganda's best known playwright. Beyond his work as a playwright, Ruganda was also a professor at University of North, South Africa, University of Nairobi, and Makerere University.^[1]

He was born in Fort Portal and died in Uganda's capital Kampala.

Ruganda's plays "reflect the reality of the East African sociopolitical situation after independence."^[2] He was considered a shaping force of East African theater.^[3] The Burdens (1972) and The Floods (1980) have become a regular part of curriculum in literature classes.^[4]

Bibliography

Plays

• The Burdens, Kampala, Uganda, National Theatre, January 1970
• Black Mamba, Kampala, 1972
• The Good Woman of Setzuan, by Bertolt Brecht, translated into Swahili by Ruganda, Nairobi, Nairobi University Players, November 1978
• The Floods, Nairobi, French Cultural Centre, 1 March 1979
• Music without Tears, Nairobi, Nairobi University Players, February 1982
• Echoes of Silence, Nairobi, 1985
• Shreds of Tenderness

Television

• The Secret of the Season, screenplay by Ruganda, Voice of Kenya, March 1973
• The Floods, screenplay by Ruganda, Voice of Kenya, April 1973
• The Illegitimate, screenplay by Ruganda, Voice of Kenya, August 1982

Further reading

• Horn, "Uhuru to Amin: The Golden Decade of Theatre in Uganda," Literary Half-Yearly, 19, no. 1 (1978): 22-49
• Peter Nazareth, "Africa under Neocolonialism: New East African Writing," Busara, 6, no. 1 (1974): 19-32
• Mineke Schipper, Theatre and Society in Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982).

Notes and References

1. Web site: African Books Collective. John Ruganda. 3 May 2011.
2. Web site: Imbuga. Francis. John Ruganda. Gale Database: Dictionary of Literary Biography. 3 May 2011.
3. Web site: Ssenkaaba. Stephen. Ruganda: The passing of a literary giant. New Vision Online. 3 May 2011. 18 December 2007. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20120922010943/http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/25/602615. 22 September 2012.
4. Web site: East African Educational Publishers Ltd.. John Ruganda Passes On. 3 May 2011. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20101129095319/http://www.eastafricanpublishers.com/News/John%20Ruganda.htm. 29 November 2010.