A lasting curse: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi and Bhakti Shringarpure

When British-Ugandan Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi wanted her debut novel Kintu published in Europe, publisher after publisher told her no – the novel was “too African”: It was neither about the colonial period nor about Idi Amin, the two things about Uganda that Western readers have heard of. And also, the characters had such complicated names. They couldn’t imagine any European readers would like to learn something new about Uganda and its history.

Makumbi’s novel is an epic family saga, taking us through the history of Uganda – from the kingdom of Buganda before the arrival of the Europeans, and up to today’s society, in which she combines myths and Biblical history with fairytales and oral storytelling tradition. In a distilled, lyrical language, we meet the patriarch Kintu in the mid-eighteenth century, when he is subject to a dark curse, before we follow his many descendants into our own time, where they all, in different ways, struggle with curses of their own. We particularly see how the men of the family struggle to live up to society’s masculine ideals. Maybe this is the real curse, affecting each of their lives and slowly poisoning the entire society?

Kintu is Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s first novel, published in 2014 after she won a manuscript competition by Kenyan Kwani Trust. Makumbi has since published the short story collection Manchester Happened and the novel The First Woman, and she has won a number of awards for her writing.

At the House of Literature, she is joined by author and creative director for the organization Radical Books Collective, Bhakti Shringarpure, for a conversation about a family and a nation, about curses and consolation.

The event was supported by NORAD.

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