Read: Yes
Length: 442
Quick Review: The Kintu clan is widespread throughout Uganda divided by diverse experiences yet united by the curse created centuries ago.
To be honest… I don’t really know how to review this novel. It’s big but not huge. It’s epic but completely accessible. It’s a great novel, but I don’t know how to describe it to you because I’m still processing it, and I think I will be for awhile. I know a lot about Nigerian history and culture because I’ve read quite a bit; Ugandan culture, history, and people are far less familiar, so I spent a good deal of time looking things up, which is good.
Makumbi is a Ugandan writer living in England writing in English. She is not writing for a Western audience, though. She isn’t diluting her culture in order to be published or well received or better understood. She’s writing for her people. For those of us who are not familiar with her culture, she draws us into her world and asks us to do a little work. It’s only fair.
Kintu has been heralded as the great Ugandan novel. I can’t say because I have no depth in Ugandan literature, but it is a great novel on its own.
Ugandan history is depicted through the Kintu clan beginning with Kintu Kidda a Ppookino in Buddu Province of Bugunda in th 1750’s. A curse is placed upon him and his descendants. In 2004, the novel follows key members of the family and how the curse affects them.
Makumbi writes about a myriad of topics, which are universally important, through the different family members in the Kintu clan. The culture represented is vastly different than that of which I grew up in or am familiar with, but it is incredibly engaging. She says her novel is not feminist, but it would be hard to read it as anything but. The female characters sparkle with strength and resilience, while the men voice opinions that strongly support equality. Twins are a running theme throughout the novel and are viewed in a way drastically different yet eerily similar to what I am familiar with.
One theme that is impossible to not notice is that of family. How family and familial history affect those around us and those who come after us in one way or another. Family is an important part of a person’s identity whether one is close to them or not. Knowing where one comes from is a way of knowing and finding oneself.
I really, really, really enjoyed this book. I don’t want to talk too much about it or give to much away because everything is so intricately interwoven. There are a lot of parts and aspects I would read with confusion because it didn’t feel like it belonged, but everything comes together in the most magical way.
Memorable Quotes
“A child was far more secure than waddling down the aisle with a wedding ring and a piece of paper.”
“”A sexually satisfied woman is a good wife, that’s all I’m saying.””
“Most people, she presumed, grew up dispensing bits of their lives over and over. Eventually their stories flowed easily.”
“Normally, silence washed things like that away, but this time it watered and the deed grew.”
“to have a mind was to be alive.”
Title: Kintu
Author: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Publisher: Transit Books
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9781945492013
