Lucas Blogs About Kintu

You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but this cover is dope!

That's right, three posts in a row without Hypothetical Reader butting in. A blogger could get used to this. This week, I'm blogging about Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi's debut novel, Kintu. According to the introduction by Aaron Bady (don't worry, I read the book before I read the intro), Kintu is the Great Ugandan Novel. I don't know enough about the Ugandan literary scene (or even contemporary African Literature at large) to make that judgment, but I can say that Kintu is an engrossing novel

It opens with the death of Kamu Kintu on Janurary 5th, 2004 at the hands of a vigilante mob after he is falsely accused of theft. It then jumps back to 1750, when his ancestor, Kintu Kidda was ppookino (this word is never translated, but it is clearly a title like governor or prefect) of a large territory in the Kingdom of Buganda. On a trip to pay homage to the new king, Kintu accidentally strikes his adopted son, a Tutsi named Kalemanzira, dead, leading the boy's father, Ntwire, to place a curse on Kintu that ultimately leads to the destruction of his family. Oh, I should mention that two of Kintu's wives are the twin sisters Babirye and Nnakato. Makumbi then brings the narrative back to the present day and follows various descendants of Kintu Kidda as they try to navigate life in modern Uganda while dealing with a family curse that they are either unaware of or purposely disregard. There's Suubi Nnakintu, haunted both by her traumatic childhood and visions of a woman called Babirye; Kanani Kintu, a zealous Chrisitan who shuns his family but seeks out their help when his teenage daughter gets pregnant; Isaac Newton Kintu, mourning the death of his wife (possibly from AIDS) but reluctant to get himself and his son tested because he'd rather live the fear of uncertainty than the hopelessness of confirmation; and Misirayimu Kintu, an aging patriarch and intellectual who's studied internationally and now finds himself the guardian of his grandchildren as his children die off. The novel is divided into six books, the first five following each of these characters individually and the final book brings them together at a family reunion with the aim of breaking the curse. It might seem like I'm spoiling things, but only a little. So let's jump in.

In some ways, Kintu might remind a Western reader of Magic Realism. I hesitate to describe it as such for two reasons: 1) for some people the term specifically refers to a movement in Latin American Literature; and B) because there's nothing that happens in the novel that is explicitly fantastic or supernatural. However, like Magic Realist works, Kintu is rendered in a straightforward, plainspoken prose style, engages with traditional storytelling and spiritual practices, and reckons with the issues of colonialism and imperialism. 

Sometimes these issues are dealt with obliquely, as in Suubi's story in which she works as a domestic for a well-to-do family and reads their "white magazines" and listens to Western pop music, other times they're more direct as characters like Misirayimu and Kanani are old enough to have experienced the end of colonialism, the Amin regime, and contemporary history as adults. Misirayimu and Kanani also represent colonial influence in their characters as a British-educated intellectual and a fundamentalist Christian preacher raised in a missionary school.  The characters may not represent the entire spectrum of Ugandan society (particularly as they are all ethnically Ganda, well, Kintu Kidda's ancestors were actually from outside Buganda, but by the 21st century they've all been assimilated), they do live different enough lives to ensure that the novel doesn't present modern Uganda as a monolith. 

Now, let's talk about the book's structure. This could almost be a book of long short stories. Until the final section, none of the stories really intersect with each other, due to the scattered nature of the Kintu family. However, Makumbi is able to bind them thematically through callbacks to the story of Kintu Kidda (for example, the recurring names Nnakato and Babirye and the family taboo against striking children on the head) and by opening each story by checking in on Kamu Kintu. Let me explain that one. Each section begins on January 5th, 2004, describing what happens to Kamu's corpse at the morgue before shifting perspective to the focal character. This repetition of a past family trauma and a current unresolved injustice helps forge a sense of connection between characters who are physically close (most of them live in and around Kampala) but unaware of their family connection (for example, both Suubi and Isaac have been severed from the Kintu family from an early age). By telling each character's story straight through until the final section, Makumbi reinforces the fractured nature of the Kintu family. This heightens the impact of the reunion, but it does also sometimes make the ending of each previous section feel abrupt. It also has the effect of making some of the character arc resolutions feel a little too pat. However, I still think it was the right choice because it highlights the characters' isolation.

One thing to pay attention to is Makumbi's use of untranslated Luganda words. That's the wrong way to put it, Makumbi wrote the novel in English and has intentionally incorporated Luganda words. So if you don't know Luganda, this will keep you on your toes as you look for context clues to establish meaning. I'm probably exaggerating this, because it's something that stuck out to me, obviously, this wouldn't stick out as much to a reader who is fluent in Luganda.

So, yeah, Kintu is an interesting read. Partly because the characters are navigating universally relatable problems but also because they are grounded in the specific circumstances of contemporary Uganda. Makumbi isn't a particularly flashy writer, but she writes with clarity and purpose. If (like me) your background in African literature is limited, this would be a good entry point.

Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Transit Books trade paperback edtion, 2017, originally published in 2014, 443 pages, pairs well with family stories and your own imagined family history

Links: 

Here's the author's website, if you're into that kinda thing.

Kintu (then called The Kintu Saga) was the winner of the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013. Kwani? is an African literary journal published in Kenya.

In addition to short story collections, she also has a new novel, A Girl is a Body of Water, coming out in September.