Ebifananyi IV: Simuda Nyuma – Forward Ever Backward Never

Simuda Nyuma is the title of a trilogy written during the 1930s by Ham Mukasa (1870-1956), who was an important chief of Baganda - a kingdom in south-central Uganda. Being highly educated and one of the first literate in the region, Mukasa wrote about the lives of three kings that ruled Buganda from ca. 1850 until the 1930s.

Inside Mukasa’s family collection, which includes photographs, books, manuscripts and documents, curator Andrea Stultiens found a list with descriptions for illustrations. These illustrations were meant to be shown in the trilogy on the life of the three kings, but were never created. Intrigued by this document, Stultiens assigned Ugandan and Dutch artists to interpret and create the illustrations. As a result, the book presents the story of Ham Mukasa via a combination of documents from the family archive and new illustrations from various contemporary artists, which place the unknown history into today’s setting.