Okot p'Bitek

Okot p'Bitek
Born	(1931-06-07)7 June 1931 Gulu, Gulu District, Northern Region, Uganda Protectorate
Died	20 July 1982(1982-07-20) (aged 51) Kampala, Uganda
Alma mater	University of Bristol, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, University of Oxford
Notable work	Song of Lawino (1966)

Okot p'Bitek (7 June 1931 – 19 July 1982) was a Ugandan poet, who achieved wide international recognition for Song of Lawino, a long poem dealing with the tribulations of a rural African wife whose husband has taken up urban life and wishes everything to be westernised. Song of Lawino was originally written in the Acholi dialect of Southern Luo, translated by the author into English, and published in 1966. It was a breakthrough work, creating an audience among anglophone Africans for direct, topical poetry in English; and incorporating traditional attitudes and thinking in an accessible yet faithful literary vehicle. It was followed by the Song of Ocol (1970), the husband's reply.

The "East African Song School" or "Okot School poetry" is now an academic identification of the work following his direction, also popularly called "comic singing": a forceful type of dramatic verse monologue rooted in traditional song and phraseology.