One winner will obtain an honorarium of $500 and can be featured within the fall difficulty of Shenandoah. One runner-up will obtain a six-month digital mentorship from a author of their style. One other runner-up can have the chance to attend a category provided by Caine Prize–successful author Makena Onjerika. The winner can be introduced in June.
As a part of the Ubwali Hope Prize Interview Sequence, we sit with every of the six shortlisted writers. They discuss their journey, the work that earned them a spot on the checklist, and the method behind their craft.
On this dialog, we converse with Suwilanji Namusamba, who’s an avid reader, foodie, author, traveler, and shutterbug. In 2001, she was one of many winners of the ANTOA Writing Contest, awarded for her poem Nightfall: Earth Rising. Her poems appeared in Ubwali’s inaugural difficulty, together with an ode to happy-ever-after known as Pricey Future Ntwenukané. Her love letter, My Avocados Are Fabricated from Gold was featured in Daring Ambition’s 2025 anthology “Lover’s Rock”.
She is at the moment engaged on her memoir and pays for her costly habits along with her different responsible pleasure, being a full-time lawyer.
Suwilanji Namusamba was shortlisted for her essay, Thoughtlets on Immersion
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Hey Suwilanji, Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Ubwali Hope Prize and congratulations on the discharge of your essay within the new Ubwali Situation. May you briefly introduce your self and share how your journey as a author started? Was there a selected second or expertise that nudged you in direction of storytelling?
Thanks! An introduction is at all times arduous as a result of I’m nonetheless navigating determining that are an important components to state. I’m a author, poet, shutterbug, foodie, traveller, and a lawyer by career. I really feel like writing is one thing that I didn’t precisely enterprise into however that occurred to me. Rising up I’d out of the blue have these concepts pop into my head and I simply needed to get them out and on paper in any other case I’d really feel like I used to be…overflowing.
It was at all times random. A poem right here, a narrative define there, or simply very random concepts that may nearly burst out of me. Thoughtlets, if you’ll. I at all times had a notepad that wanted filling. It might all have began with being pressured to jot down precise letters house to oldsters each Sunday in boarding college, and the sensation I’d typically get, as soon as I knew the best way to correctly write, that there merely wasn’t sufficient paper to inform my dad and mom about all of the adventures I used to be having. It might even be why writing non-fiction has at all times been simpler for me than fiction.
Thoughtlets on Immersion was an interesting learn, I felt pulled into the varied adventures and moments you explored within the many waters. What was it like scripting this essay? And why did this topic really feel essential to you?
I randomly began scripting this essay on a Sunday evening at 10:53pm. The day and time are each vital as a result of it was well beyond my bedtime, and I had work the following day. Additionally, the Lake Bangweulu unicorn floater incident that I talk about in Thoughtlets on Immersion had occurred only a week earlier than. I should have been wanting on the photographs and movies from the journey and I simply mentioned to myself, probably out loud within the silence of my house, “what’s it with me and water?”.
Subsequent factor I used to be typing furiously away on my Notes app making an attempt to investigate it. I feel higher once I see ideas on “paper” so it was extra of a second of letting out the ideas whereas they had been nonetheless recent, so I might learn and contemplate all this later. I added the experiences that got here later, over time, and I assume studying all of it collectively, I got here to the conclusion that being curious and afraid of water didn’t should be mutually unique.
What does being shortlisted for the Ubwali Hope Prize imply to you personally and as a author?
Seeing my work printed has been simply as exhilarating as writing it, so being shortlisted for this superb alternative means an excellent deal to me. It’s so surreal that I solely used to share my writing with my family and friends, and now I get to see it being printed on wider platforms. So, being shortlisted for this Prize feels just like the smooth whisper I wanted to listen to to inform me that sharing my writing means one thing, and will open doorways for me to additionally study extra about my writing and about myself.
You put on many hats—reader, foodie, traveller, author, and even lawyer. How do you stability all of those passions? And do they ever intersect in surprising methods?
It’s attention-grabbing how all of the totally different components of me have truly built-in very properly. Being a lawyer signifies that I learn and write a LOT, and since I get pleasure from what I do, it makes studying and writing for my very own pleasure come so much simpler. Additionally, being a lawyer has helped to considerably enhance how properly I categorical myself and talk, which helps me in so many areas of my career and in relationships.
I like taking photographs and I get to do quite a lot of that once I journey, and the foodie in me has a chance to discover culinary delights of the locations the place I’m going on adventures. It’s positively vital that I really feel that my job as a lawyer helps a balanced way of life, and I’ve additionally learnt to make room for my pursuits. I gained’t dive into the work-life stability debate as a result of I do know now that nobody is certified to offer greater than only a glimpse of their very own mechanisms, and I’ve learnt that it’s positively not recommendation that I consider fits all circumstances. Even I don’t at all times discover stability, despite the fact that I really feel like I’ve laid down my basic rules to offer me room to get pleasure from all my passions.
Writers usually start as readers, and studying continues to form their voice. Which books or authors have left a long-lasting affect on you, and are there any you come to usually?
Oh my! This can be a robust one. I really feel like my early influences that made me wish to write got here from the books we learn in English Literature. Breaking down the authors’ and poets’ use of language had me hooked. I not too long ago acquired a replica of Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers and re-reading it took me means again to the times once I first began studying more difficult writing and I’d have a dictionary and thesaurus by my facet able to dive into new phrases. Additionally, I’m fairly eclectic with my studying now, and I type of let my books “come to me”, in no matter form or type that takes. I feel I may should share my prime 16 reads of 2021-2025 to be honest, in no specific order:
- The Ladies by Lori Lansens
- The Reminiscence of Love by Aminatta Forna
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
- The First Lady by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
- Perhaps You Ought to Speak to Somebody by Lori Gottlieb
- The Dictionary of Misplaced Phrases by Pip Williams
- Sturdy Feminine Character by Fern Brady
- Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi
- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
- The Invisible Lifetime of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
- The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
- We Have been Ladies As soon as by Aiwanose Odafen
- The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
I not too long ago completed studying Oprah Winfrey’s What I Know for Positive, and I’ll positively come again to that one. I’m at the moment studying/listening to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Depend, and the gathering of letters by Gillian Anderson known as Need which has been an eye-opening and reflective learn.
Regardless that I’d have cherished to offer a shorter reply, all these books I’ve talked about have evoked vital feelings or impacted me in a peculiar means, so I couldn’t go away any out. All this and I haven’t even talked about poetry–a dialog for one more time.
Are there any initiatives you’re at the moment engaged on—writing or in any other case—that you simply’re enthusiastic about?
I’ve a poetry guide that has been in edit for means too lengthy. 53 poems, 122 pages and I’m simply not fully positive the place to go along with it. I had a replica printed in order that I might scribble my edits in it, and that helped considerably, however I really feel like there’s one thing that it’s lacking that I’m looking for earlier than I contemplate what publishing it’s going to appear to be.
I wrote a novelette which I’ve been fascinated with turning right into a novel, which has quite a lot of emotion connected for me, as a result of I began writing it throughout the pandemic, when quite a lot of my writing had harrowing themes.
Most importantly I began writing my memoir about 4 years in the past. I used to be studying Patchwork by Ellen Banda Aaku (add that to checklist of books/authors which have impacted me) and I learn this on the primary web page below Message from Chinua Achebe:
“The world is simply beginning to get to know Africa. The final 5 hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a physique of literature that offered Africa in a really dangerous gentle and now the time has come for Africans to inform their very own tales.”
I instantly began writing my story, beginning with a preamble explaining what occurred in my thoughts in that second once I began typing furiously away. I’ve known as it I’m Telling My Personal Story and the thought was that I’d end it by 2026. I’m 34,000 or so phrases in and my greatest drawback is that effervescent brook difficulty I discussed earlier. I don’t know what to depart in and what to take out. Actually, the thrilling a part of it’s simply figuring out that I can go away one thing on the planet that offers a distinct facet to “the African story” even when it by no means reaches print.
What recommendation would you give rising writers, navigating the evolving panorama of African literature in the present day, particularly those that might really feel unseen or unsure?
Probably the most vital factor I’ve come to seek out: write and carry on writing.
Write like no-one will ever learn it (one thing I adopted from The Ladies by Lori Lansens that I discussed earlier) or write such as you need everybody to learn it. If it’s your ardour: JUST WRITE. It may be such a weak factor to do, however I’d by no means have discovered myself having this dialogue right here if I didn’t let myself be seen via my phrases. I nonetheless do not know what my writing journey will appear to be going ahead, however I do know that if there’s something vital I wish to go away on earth once I’m gone, it’s phrases on paper that I took the time to share. My biggest hope is that sometime, in some way, what I’ve shared can assist somebody ultimately, carry then cheer and laughter, entertain them, or simply make them really feel seen.
Congratulations as soon as once more on being shortlisted for the Ubwali Hope Prize. Thanks for taking the time to reply our questions. We’re wanting ahead to all of your initiatives within the close to and much future.
