Kintu: From the winner of the Jhalak Prize, 2021 - Softcover

Makumbi, Jennifer Nansubuga

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1786074435 ISBN 13: 9781786074430

Publisher: Oneworld Publications, 2018

Synopsis

 

The breathtaking debut from the winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction 2018

'A soaring and sublime epic. One of those great stories that was just waiting to be told.' (Marlon James, Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings)

The year is 1750. As he makes his way to the capital to pledge allegiance to the new leader of the Buganda Kingdom, Kintu Kidda unleashes a curse that will plague his family for generations. As the centuries pass, the tale moves down the bloodline, exploring the lives of four of Kintu Kidda s descendants. Although the family members all have their own stories and live in very different circumstances, they are united by one thing the struggle to break free from the curse and escape the burden of their family s past.

Blending Ganda oral tradition, myth, folktale and history, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi has brought to life an extraordinarily colourful cast of characters to produce a powerful epic a modern classic.

About this title

Review:

Succeeds in making us feel the emotional importance of uncovering family history.

(Times Literary Supplement)

'Kintu is an important book. It is also a very good one...inventive in scope, masterful in execution, [Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi] does for Ugandan literature what Chinua Achebe did for Nigerian writing.'

(Guardian)

'A multi-character epic that emphatically lives up to its ambition.'

(Sunday Times)

A highly ambitious, dense and tightly written narrative... Makumbi succeeds in making us feel the emotional importance of uncovering family history. Often faced with agonisingly difficult legacies and situations, her characters don t just want but need explanations.

(Times Literary Supplement)

Kintu is a triumph of east African literature and one that delights in the pliant nature of storytelling itself, the ways in which family lore is passed down and the impact of variations on it... This rich drama examines the power of such legacies, and the potential for even the most far-flung, estranged families to unite in the face of ages-old evil.

(Financial Times)

Immediately engaging...as gruelling vignettes of gender injustice jostle with hallucinatory dream sequences.

(Observer)

'Epic both in intention and execution, Kintu contains a vast number of characters, avenging ghosts and portentous visions...the final coming together of the entire Kintu clan, arrived at with precision and intricacy, makes for a satisfying and thoughtful denouement.'

(Spectator)

'A soaring and sublime epic. One of those great stories that was just waiting to be told.'

--(Marlon James, Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings)

Kintu is an entertaining, engrossing, and, crucially, intimate read... an extraordinary novel that is unafraid and beautifully unashamed to examine Uganda s rich culture. It is a novel that is proudly Ugandan; it is a novel that deserves to be widely read.

--(Irish Times)

The most important book to come out of Uganda for half a century.'

--(Giles Foden, author of The Last King of Scotland)

About the Author:

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, a Ugandan novelist and short story writer, has a PhD from Lancaster University. Her first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013 and was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize in 2014. Her story Let s Tell This Story Properly won the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Makumbi lives in Manchester with her husband, Damian, and her son, Jordan.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1786074435
• ISBN 13: 9781786074430
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432