Uganda, Nov. 28 -- The great Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, once said: "It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning."

This remark is particularly apt for The Faces in Their Eyes, written by a young woman, Pompilla S. Agalo.

Agalo's book is an autobiography, but also an elaborate combination of many little stories, a skilfully woven tapestry of separate and intertwining events and human experiences - both happy and sad, even horrendous.

It is a commentary on the goings-on, past and present, in various spheres of life in Uganda and elsewhere.

At the heart of the autobiography are two persons, irrevoca...