Robert Serumaga

Serumaga Robert
 
Birthdate: 1939

Date of Death: 1980
 
Place of birth: Masaka, central Uganda
 
Writing languages: English and Luganda
 
Education: Serumaga passed through the Catholic mission education system before leaving for an undergraduate degree course at Trinity College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland, in 1959. He graduated with an honours degree in economics arid returned to Uganda in the late 1960s.
 
Employment: Novelist, actor, playwright, director, Serumaga had been involved in the arts scene (fringe theatre broadcasting etc) while in Europe and developed this work on his return. Back in Uganda, Serumaga co-founded Theatre Limited, a mixed African expatriate group that staged a number of well- known plays like Athol Fugard's The Blood Knot. Serumaga's own plays featured too.

Theatre Limited evolved into an all- African cast with Mafangwa in 1974. He went on to form Abafumi Theatre Company as a project of Theatre Limited. Abafumi performed the productions for which Serumaga is best remembered in Uganda, namely, Renga Moi and Amayirikiti which broke new ground in bringing a clear African aesthetic to the modem stage. Abafumi toured extensively in Europe, Latin America and Africa before ceasing operations in 1978 - shortly after being forced into exile due to the then regime's displeasure with the meaning and content of the group's plays.

He went on to actively participate in the 1978-79 liberation war that led to the fall of Idi Amin's murderous regime. Serumaga lost his life during the subsequent political turmoil.
 
Bibliography:
Return to the Shadows (novel), London: Heinemann, 1967.
A Play (play). Kampala: UPH, 1967.
The Elephants (play). 1971.
Majangwa (play). Nairobi: EAPH, 1972. Renga Moi,Staged, Unpublished, 1973-1974
Amayirikiti Staged,Unpublished. 1975
Ekikikenke, (Unpublished,1977)