contact with a priest, giving her the courage to recall her buried
memories of her father.
Jackie Kay praised the story, saying, "Okwiri Oduor is a writer we are
all really excited to have discovered. 'My Father's Head' is an uplifting
story about mourning - Joycean in its reach. She exercises an
extraordinary amount of control and yet the story is subtle, tender and
moving. It is a story you want to return to the minute you finish it."
Okwiri Oduor directed the inaugural Writivism Literary Festival in
Kampala, Uganda in August 2013. Her novella, The Dream Chasers
was highly commended in the Commonwealth Book Prize, 2012. She
is a 2014 MacDowell Colony fellow and is currently at work on her
debut novel.The panel of judges was chaired by award-winning
author Jackie Kay MBE. Her novels have won a range of awards,
including the Forward Prize, a Saltire prize, a Scottish Arts Council
Prize and the Guardian Fiction Award. Her most recent collection of
poems, Fiere, was shortlisted for the Costa award. Her most recent
book, Reality Reality, is a collection of stories and she is currently
working on her new novel, Bystander. She was awarded an MBE in
2006, made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002 and is
currently Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.
She was joined by the distinguished novelist and playwright Gillian
Slovo, Zimbabwean journalist Percy Zvomuya, Assistant Professor of
English at the University of Georgetown Nicole Rizzuto and the
winner of the Caine Prize in 2001 Helon Habila.
MY FATHER’S HEAD
OKWIRI ODUOR
I had meant to summon my father only long enough to see what his
head looked like, but now he was here and I did not know how to
send him back. It all started the Thursday that Father Ignatius came
from Immaculate Conception in Kitgum. The old women wore their
Sunday frocks, and the old men plucked garlands of bougainvillea
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