See here for methodology; I am excluding books unless at least 50% of them is actually set in Uganda, and I had real trouble deciding with some of these, so it’s a list of ten rather than the usual eight.
I should say also that I am a little fascinated by Uganda because my father taught history at Makerere University in Kampala from 1959 to 1961, and I went there myself in 2010 and found the corridor where his old office would have been. (When he left, his successor was Bethwell Ogot, who is still alive.)
| Title | Author | GR raters | LT owners |
| Kisses from Katie | Katie Davis Majors | 33,774 | 1,253 |
| In a Free State | V.S. Naipaul | 5,111 | 1,140 |
| The Last King of Scotland | Giles Foden | 4,196 | 949 |
| A Girl Is a Body of Water | Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi | 7,723 | 418 |
| All Our Names | Dinaw Mengestu | 4,827 | 472 |
| Daring to Hope: Finding God’s Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful | Katie Davis Majors | 6,371 | 265 |
| Kintu | Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi | 4,121 | 397 |
| The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster | Tim Crothers | 3,052 | 287 |
| Beatrice’s Goat | Page McBrier | 722 | 1,188 |
| We Are All Birds of Uganda | Hafsa Zayyan | 5,665 | 112 |
So, I am not sure about In A Free State, by V.S. Naipaul, because the original publication with that title is a collection of shorter pieces, the longest of which is also called “In A Free State”, is set in Uganda (not named but clearly intended) and has also been published as a standalone. I suspect that the shorter piece is less than half of the original collection (with is otherwise set elsewhere) and I suspect that most of the owners of a book with that title own the collection rather than the standalone, but I am sufficiently unsure to include it above with this caveat.
Both All Our Names, by Dinaw Mengistu, and We Are All Birds of Uganda, by Hafsa Zayyan, are split between Uganda and another country (the UK and the USA respectively) and I have not been able to detect if the Ugandan content is more or less than 50% of the book in either case. So again, I’ve included them on the above list with this caveat.
Unfortunately the top spot for books set in Uganda, on both Goodreads and LibraryThing, still goes to a literal white saviour narrative. It’s a long way ahead on Goodreads, and also leads if by a much narrower margin on LibraryThing. At least Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, who is actually Ugandan, gets two books on the list.
Books excluded without hesitation: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, by Philip Gourevitch (set in Rwanda); The Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard Kapuściński (set in Ethiopia); At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe, by Tsh Oxenreider (set in many countries); Aftershocks, by Nadia Owusu (set in many countries); This Is How We Do It: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids from around the World, by Matt LaMothe (set in many countries); Walking the Nile, by Levison Wood (set in many countries) and A History of Burning, Janika Oza (centred on Uganda but my sense is that less than half of the book is actually set there).
Next up is Spain, then Algeria.