Kintu was first of all modeled on a mythological figure who was the first man on earth. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi: Thanks for having me here. Was he a mythological figure? In the book he is an actual character, but maybe you can describe a bit about the figure that is Kintu. So, I wonder if you can tell me about Kintu Kidda. The novel follows the descendants of Kintu as they struggle with a curse he unleashed as he made his way to the capital in the middle of the eighteenth century. It begins in 1750, when Kintu Kidda sets out for the capital to pledge allegiance to the new leader of the Buganda kingdom. I want to start by discussing your novel, Kintu, which is in many ways a modern classic of world literature. Here they discuss how westerners and Africans read African literature differently, writing for Ugandans, and how eighteen years in England has changed her. While Makumbi was a fellow at the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center at George Mason University this past spring, she talked with Matthew Davis, the center’s founding director. She lives in Manchester with her husband and son and lectures in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Retitled Let’s Tell This Story Properly, the collection was published in the US in July 2019. Her first full story collection, Manchester Happened, was published by Oneworld in May 2019. She was awarded the 2014 Commonwealth Short-Story Prize for her story Lets Tell This Story Properly, published by Granta, and the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction 2018 to support her writing. Ugandan novelist and short-story writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi ’s first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani Manuscript Project in 2013 and was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize in 2014.

Jennifer makumbi kintu