She is perhaps best-known for her poetry book 100 Days, a reflection on the 100-day 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and Hutu people were killed.
[10] Okot Bitek is a literary artist, poet, writer, scholar, and a sessional instructor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design's Faculty of Culture + Community.
[4] Okot Bitek is a prolific author, whose has been published in a variety of formats, including literary magazines and journals such as ARC, Whetstone, Fugue, and Room of One’s Own.
[14] In 2018, her work "Sentry" was included in the anthology Love Me True, a collection of writings about the challenges, joys, and evolutions that exist within longterm relationships.
In 2007, Okot Bitek received a grant from the Canada Council, which has facilitated her to write more non-fiction work.
[26] John Keene, one of the judges for the 2017 Glenna Luschei award, wrote: "In 100 Days, poet Juliane Okot Bitek set out to memorialize the tragedy of the Rwandan genocide, but the witnessing force of these brief, incantatory poems ripples outward to figuratively encompass multiple histories of violence and brutality, including the terror her own family and countless others faced under Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda.
The lyric beauty, intertextual depth, and metonymic power of Okot Bitek's poetry underscores the capacities of art and language to cast light into the darkest corners of our human experience, and bridge the gulfs that lie between us.