Examination of Post-independence Failures in Uganda as Represented in Moses Isegawa’s Abyssinian Chronicles

Abstract

Postcolonial crisis, failures, confusion, absurdities and pain have continued to provoke debate in Ugandan literature. Poets, dramatists and novelists have all tried to reveal the effects of colonialism on Africa and written about the selfishness, tyranny, dictatorship and corruption of the post-independence leaders. In a foreword by Ngugi of “Unmasking the African Dictator: Essays on Postcolonial African Literature,” he points out that even civilian regimes became undistinguishable from the military, as both mirror the images of the undemocratic and authoritarianism of the colonial era as the dawn of independence was followed by dwindling hope (Ndigirigi, 2014). As Uganda lurches into the aftermath and legacy of colonial powers, Moses Isegawa’s novel Abyssinian Chronicles is one of those that weaves personal narratives and issues of post- independence pain, failures and confusion in postcolonial Uganda. The novel tells a story of the arbitrariness of the life of characters due to the selfishness, incompetence, inadequacies and the hypocrisy of the first generation of leaders after colonialism.