What did you want them to take away from it? Makumbi, who grew up in Kampala, spoke with me by Skype from her current home in Manchester.ĪLEXIA UNDERWOOD: You’ve said in the past that you wrote this book for Ugandans. Makumbi’s clear and compelling prose combines oral history and East African oral storytelling techniques ( Kintu is the name of the legendary first man, a reference to the creation myth of the Baganda) while keeping one eye fixed on the reality of modern day Uganda, a place where the seemingly solid ground of clan and family divisions can quickly give way to shifting sand. Suffice it to say that this is a ridiculous assertion. But her substantial 443-page novel was roundly rejected by British publishers for being “too African” - full of too many characters with difficult-to-pronounce names, not focused on the colonial experience, and generally inaccessible to Western readers.

Kintu (pronounced “Chintu”) was published in Kenya in 2014 Makumbi won the Kwani? Manuscript Project award, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and she was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize for Literature. To some, apparently, this may come as a surprise. JENNIFER NANSUBUGA MAKUMBI’S novel Kintu, about a cursed family confronting the vicissitudes of a changing Uganda, is a highly engrossing read. So Many Ways of Knowing: An Interview withĪlexia Underwood interviews Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Kintu jennifer makumbi