Title: QUEER UGANDA
Year: 2024
Issue: 136
Cover: Tamary Kudita, Roots, 2020 Digital Print. Courtesy of artist.
T136 features a folio on Queer Uganda, which paints a harrowing portrait of queer life under Museveni’s 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act in essays, short fiction, and poetry. As Danson Kahyana writes in his introduction, the “AHA imposes a life sentence on consensual same-sex conduct among adults…already criminalized under the Penal Code Act…there is also a penalty for up to twenty years in prison for activities that promote homosexuality.” To stay out of prison, writers and other artists have had to censor themselves. In this issue of Transition, they do not; their courage to describe the reality they have been forced to live is beyond measure. To start, read Mark Kennedy Nsereko’s personal essay “I’m Telling You about Omukwano Ogw’ebikukuju,” which begins with the afandes raiding a party, holds individuals and the entire government to account. Don’t miss the pride and free movement of Gloria Kiconco’s poems, Tushabe’s trials as an intersex person in “A Body in Balance: Wielding Community against an Oppressive Regime” and more stories and essays by Ema Babikwa, Beatrice Lamwaka, Jedidiah Mugarura, and Kurotayaka.
In addition to the Queer Uganda folio, Frederick John Lamp brings us yet another dimension of Bayard Rustin’s genius in “Was Bayard Rustin the Most Important Collector of African Art in the 1950s?” which takes us on a breathtaking journey of art-detective work. And this holiday season, treat yourself to Dagmawi Woubshet’s rich interview, “Let this Prayer Be Accepted,” with the scholar, author, and multi-disciplinary artist Ashon Crawley about his installation on the Washington Mall, Homegoing. And Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s interview “One-Woman Show,” with Booker-Prize winning author Bernardine Evaristo (from our podcast.)
More description including all contributors.
New, deeply imagined fiction by Ber Anena, Fred Lafortune, speculative fiction writer Endria Richardson, and Nnami Oguike–set in Uganda, Haiti, northern California, and Senegal, respectively. And striking poems by Marcus Wicker, Hana Meron, jason b. crawford, Saddiq Dzukogi, Jeremiah Agbaakin, and Ìfẹ́olúwa Àyàndélé round out the issue, which would not be complete without the stunning art (in resplendid color) of Modupeola Fadugba, Adjani Okpu-Egbe, Tina Williams Brewer, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Micha Serraf, Tamary Kudita (whose work is on the cover), Ethel Aanyu, Leilah Babirye, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Nana Yaw Oduro, Matthew Eguavoen, and Amy Bravo.