BOOKS THEY READ: Patrick Oguru Onen
Patrick Oguru Onen manages the Poofa Institute for people with physical and mental disability. He spoke to Beatrice Lamwaka about his passion for books.
What do you like about fiction?
It usually makes me wonder at the depth of an author’s intellect – especially a good author. Since fiction mainly entails describing imaginary events and people, some writers have nearly perfected this art, to an extent that I find myself vicariously involved in the sequential layout of the plot. A prototype of such an author is Sembene Ousmane.
What have you benefitted from reading books?
I have been exposed to the complex diversities of the human race. For example, I always get a clue of European, Asian, South American and American character and lifestyle, when I read from authors like; Thomas Hardy, Mahatma Gandhi, V.S. Naipool and Robert Olmstead respectively – just to mention but a few. All these exposures to dissimilar intellectual thoughts, helps generously plaster my mind with more knowledge, of how to sail through life successfully.
Which books kept you awake at night?
Mainly spiritual (Christian) books; especially Snatched from Satan’s Claws: An amazing deliverance by Christ by D. D. Kaniaki and R. Mukendi, and Prepare for War by Rebecca Brown. The avid and vivid descriptions, sometimes in tabular layout, of Satan’s robotic schedules made me feel like a haunted prey. These made me feel I knew too much about Lucifer, and conversely I imagined he was unrelentingly trying to find means of annihilating me – especially in the night. Each book managed to successfully keep me in paranoiac restlessness for about a fortnight.
Who are your favourite authors?
David Herbert Lawrence; for his deep psychological writings, that I quite relate with in substance. You will likely come across a relative philosophical aphorism if not a plethora of them for every score pages you will care to read and fathom successively. For example sayings such as, “ a man will part with anything, so long as he’s drunk”, and “sometimes life takes hold of one, accomplishes one’s history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were slurred over”.
I like Wole Soyinka too. Apart from being intellectual, his writings are always full of fresh and vivid imagery. He is writings also have a clear distinction of native and so called ‘civilized’ thinking, all synthetically but harmoniously reconciled in a comprehensible fashion, to drive home different but clear schools of thought. One of his plays I will never tire of re- reading is, Kongi’s Harvest. He is truly a living legend in his sect of the arts.
Which Ugandan books have you read?
Surely they are many. But those that still come to my mind now are; Upon this Mountain – Timothy Wangusa, Sowing the Mastered Seed by Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Of Saints and Scarecrows by Ulysses Chuka Kibuka, Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol by Okot P’bitek, Kosiya Kifefe by Prof Arthur Gakwandi, Secrets no More by Goretti Kyomuhedo, Immortal whispers by Yossa . G, A Season of Mirth by Regina Amollo, Taking the Battle to the Devil’s Territory by Tom Mugerwa, Dawn of the Pearl by Pamela Acaye, and clusters of books published by FEMRITE, especially the anthologies comprising of notable author’s such as Hilda Twongyeirwe, among others.
