Resilient trio of young Ugandan abductees star in Bitek’s Free Press Book Club pick

The Free Press Book Club and McNally Robinson Booksellers are pleased to welcome Kenya-born, Kingston, Ont.-based author Otoniya J. Okot Bitek to the next virtual meeting on Tuesday, March 31 at 7 p.m. to read from and discuss her critically lauded novel We, the Kindling.

Published in 2025 by Alchemy by Knopf Canada, We, the Kindling first introduces readers to a trio of women — Helen, Maggie and Miriam — who were just children when they were abducted from their homes and schools in northern Uganda the mid-1990s and forced to be part of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a militant religious extremist group.

The story begins with the women as adults, trying to rejoin society after years of brutalization and trauma at the hands of the army leaders, before flowing into vivid flashbacks which explore the circumstances of each abduction and the consequent journey of the women (then just girls) to find their way to safety, both physically and emotionally.

We, the Kindling utilizes the fictional, first-person accounts (which also includes several other women in addition to the main trio) rooted in fact to fully illustrate the intensity and violence of the time, but also uses the monsters and dangers present in folk tales to parallel what the girls are experiencing.

Within that folklore, Bitek also writes of resilience, strength and the knowledge that monsters can, indeed, be defeated.

Having published numerous lauded poetry collections, Bitek’s debut novel received plenty of praise, landing on the long list for the 2025 Giller Prize and the short list for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

Of the book, the jury for the latter prize called the book “a poet’s novel in the very best way: the stark music of powerful individual voices that resonate with trauma, resilience, and tradition. This is a history of stories, insightful testimonies that insist in their frank beauty that history is not forgotten but is transmuted into the most fundamental questions,” adding Bitek “writes with mastery of lives forged in war; a testament to the strength of these uncompromising and empowering witnesses, smouldering with life and hard-won possibility.”

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Bitek will join Free Press reporter Aaron Epp, McNally Robinson Booksellers event facilitator Daniel Bear and Free Press audience engagement manager Erin Lebar. She will read from We, the Kindling, discuss the book and field questions from viewers and readers.

Copies of We, the Kindling are available to purchase at McNally Robinson Booksellers; there’s no cost to join the book club or virtual discussion. Video of the meeting will be available for replay on the Free Press YouTube channel following the event.