16/08/2026
Alex Mukulu was one of the most interesting minds in Uganda’s arts. He contributed immensely to meaningful theatre, literature and social criticism, and understood that art need not merely entertain a society--it must diagnose it.
I am an ardent reader of both English and Luganda literature, the subjects I studied and passed with distinction, so I particularly appreciated Mukulu’s insistence that art must retain craft, depth and purpose. He never surrendered himself to the contemporary dikuula culture of populism. In fact, he criticised dikuula relentlessly. Some interpreted this as art snobbery. Those of us who appreciated his rather conservative view of art understood the argument beneath it. Popularity alone does not make art profound, and noise does not become literature merely because enough people applaud it.
Mukulu understood what he did best. He treated drama as more than people assembling on a stage to manufacture laughter. Art could entertain, certainly, but it could also interrogate power, expose hypocrisy, preserve language, examine culture and diagnose the maladies troubling our society. If art cannot hold a mirror before society and occasionally force society to dislike what it sees, what exactly is the mirror for? (Read that twice)
Jajja Mukulu has now paddled far beyond us. We shall miss the man, his mind, his stubborn standards and his unmistakable presence although artists enjoy a small rebellion against death because the body leaves and the work refuses to accompany it.
His contribution to Uganda’s literary and artistic life will continue speaking, provoking and entertaining long after the applause has gone silent.
Rest in peace 🙏