Blog

My Mother Knelt on the Floor to Save My Life — And She Was Not Even Looking for Thanks

There is a particular kind of courage that nobody writes songs about.
It is not the courage of soldiers or speeches or stadiums. It is quieter than all of that, and more costly. It is the courage of a woman on her knees on a packed earth floor, in a house with no electricity, holding a baby who has stopped responding, pressing herbal medicine to his lips, and praying — not...

The Night Before I Was Born
My sister told me the story one night, years later, the kind of night that has a particular quality of darkness — the kind where the truth slips through because everyone is tired of carrying it.

She told me that the month before I was born, my father — drunk, as he sometimes was in those years — beat my mother. He kicked her in the abdomen. She was eight months pregnant with me. And as he kicked her, he screamed words that I will not let myself write in full here,...

The House With Cracks in the Walls
I can close my eyes right now and walk through every room.
The house I grew up in was a four-room mud and reed structure, the kind that the rain slowly unmade and the sun slowly remade, over and over, across seasons. The walls had cracks that ran from corner to corner like a map of everywhere the world had tried to get in. The floor was packed earth that collected dust and, with the dust, jiggers — those small parasitic insects that burrow beneath your...

The Man Behind the Page

Watch Full Trailer
Away from his desk, Achilles is a devoted football fan whose allegiance to Manchester United has survived decades of heartbreak with the loyalty only someone who grew up naming school fields after Old Trafford can truly understand. He is drawn to slow, meditative music; to family dramas and films that take the long view of a human life; to travel that puts you inside someone else’s story for a while.

The Dream From Dust: A Writer is Born

The book that changed the direction of Achilles’ life was Tara Westover’s “Educated.” He read it at his office desk and, in its reflection, saw his own story looking back at him. He looked up at the twenty-year-old avocado tree outside the window—the same tree that had been standing in the family compound through drought and flood, bearing fruit for decades—and something clicked. That tree had never been asked whether it wanted...

Achilles Lukonge is a Professional Social Worker, Economist, Historian, and IT Expert—a rare convergence of disciplines that makes him one of the most versatile humanitarian voices of his generation. He is a respected author and a tireless advocate for the economic, social, and spiritual empowerment of children, the girl child, persons with disabilities, and the vulnerable poor.

He did not choose social work so much as social...

At Kibaale Primary School, Achilles discovered two passions that would never leave him: football and knowledge. He named the school compound “Old Trafford” with his friends, and could recite every Manchester United squad number by heart after a single week of studying a calendar his brother brought from Kampala. He passed his Primary Leaving Examinations with flying colours, placing among the best in his school—a result that felt, to a barefoot boy who had spent...

There is a Baganda proverb that says a tree’s strength is measured not by the gentleness of the seasons it has known, but by the storms it has survived. By that measure, Lukonge Achilles Musaasizi is a forest.

Born on the 4th of January 1993 in Kisaka Village—a small, lush settlement tucked into the rolling hills of Kakuuto Sub-County, Kyotera District, in southern Uganda—Achilles entered the world in a banana plantation, under the open sky, the ninth of twelve...

You can't fail to cry while reading this book; I appreciated that he admitted how these many challenges almost led him to give up on his dreams because it shows that striving for better life isn't an easy road, especially for someone living in poverty

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a brand-new, dedicated app designed to bring you closer to my writing universe. This app acts as your direct, portable portal to my entire library. It is designed to keep you deeply connected to the past—and to my latest work.

For years, you’ve supported my literally journey, reading my books, and joining me at events. Today, I’m taking that connection a step further. I’ve been working behind the scenes to build the...

What you can find here:

• My Books: Browse my published works, read...