Past Events

Previous Reading Groups

Mary Seacole, The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands (1857)

Mary Seacole’s wonderful book is suitable for reading with literature students at school and university. She is a funny and fascinating character whose work in the Crimea has been somewhat recognised recently; however, her memoir remains marginalised in terms of nineteenth-century literature. 

Thomas Mofolo, Chaka (1925, 1931)

Largely regarded as the ‘first African contribution to world literature’, Lesotho writer Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka (1925, 1931) is at once an epic tragedy of hubris and a syncretic mix of Christian and Basotho beliefs. First published in Sesotho and then translated into English, the novel tells the story of legendary Zulu leader, king and emperor Chaka.

Begum Rokeya, ‘Sultana’s Dream’ (1905)

The short story ‘Sultana’s Dream’ (1905), by Bengali feminist writer Rokeya Sahkawat Hossain, is a classic first-wave feminist utopian text, weaving together a dream narrative of gender reversal, technological innovation, and anticolonial politics.

Ham Mukasa, Uganda’s Katikiro in England (1904)

Originally written in Luganda, Uganda’s Katikiro in England (1904) records a journey made by Apolo Kagwa, the Katikiro (Prime Minister) of Buganda, and his secretary, Ham Mukasa, to attend the coronation of Edward VII. Praised by European travellers as the ‘pearl of Africa’, by 1894 the Kingdom of Buganda had become a client state within the new British Protectorate of Uganda.

The Indigenous Nineteenth Century Symposium