USD 4.00
On the Hills of Distress is a powerful village novel rooted in Lango, Uganda, that lays bare the quiet violence hidden in everyday life. Through the troubled household of Okunu, his long-suffering wife Silvina, their wayward son Ongura, and the orphaned child Okic, Denis Benard Oleke explores how cruelty, patriarchy, silence, and misplaced tradition conspire to destroy lives. Set against bustling markets, broken schools, clan courts, and homesteads weighed down by poverty and fear, the story traces how distress is not sudden but cultivated—passed from men to women, from parents to children, and from one generation to the next. With sharp satire, haunting imagery, and an unflinching moral eye, Oleke challenges the reader to confront uncomfortable truths about authority, responsibility, and communal failure. On the Hills of Distress is both a lament and a warning: a story of what happens when society looks away—and the cost paid by the most vulnerable.
