BEYOND MONUMENTS, the politics and poetics of memory in post-war northern Uganda

262pp., illus., map, paperback, Makhanda, 2022

"The monograph engages with topics that are urgent across Africa, namely war commemoration – in particular, of the war dead – and competing discourses of nation-building and peace-building … This is a smart and original work with unique cross-disciplinary insights into and fresh ideas about popular culture and orality, and how these relate to memory and commemoration." Dr Carli Coetzee, Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, Oxford University

"Most books on the war in Northern Uganda or on Uganda's war experiences tend to focus on historical or anthropological angles. This work looks at how intangible and marginal arts reveal the lived experiences of ordinary communities in war contexts. I regard this as groundbreaking research that will further conversations on how Ugandan war experiences and histories are remembered, fashioned and re-fashioned through orature and memorial artefacts." Professor Susan Kiguli, Department of Literature, Makerere University, Uganda

Laury Ocen teaches in the Department of Professional Studies, Faculty of Education, Lira University, Uganda.