John Ruganda

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.

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." He was considered a shaping force of East African theater. The Burdens (1972) and The Floods (1980) have become a regular part of curriculum in literature classes.

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).