In 2014, Ugandan fiction writer and literature professor Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Kintu transformed the literary world with its blend of oral tradition and creative historical fiction. Jennifer has since gone on to publish several short story collections and novels, including The First Woman which won the 2021 Jhalak Prize for Book of the Year by a Writer of Colour. During our interview, it’s evident to see how much of a passion Makumbi has for storytelling.
Makumbi speaks with a delightful, contagious enthusiasm as she shares her lifelong love for stories which she explains came from her grandparents: “They were really fantastic storytellers. My grandfather was all about entertainment and making us laugh. My grandmother was more about learning and the moral of the story. I also had to tell stories and it was always about coming up with a new story that nobody knew. So I would turn plots from Western novels into African folktales and I was a star! That is where I started as a storyteller.”
Black female writers and novelists across the continent and diaspora, including Toni Morrison, Efua Sutherland, Yvonne Vera, and Tsitsi Dangarembga, greatly inspire Makumbi’s writing. Their work, along with the oral traditions, folk tales, and myths passed on to her by her grandparents were the catalyst for Makumbi’s writing career. Her journey began with playwriting for secondary school competitions and materialized throughout and beyond her dissertation novel project, better known to readers as Kintu.
In Kintu, Makumbi reimagines and retells Uganda’s history through the story and curse of the Kintu clan. When writing Kintu, she explains, “I knew that world had gone away. No one knew about it. So I researched and I just let my imagination run and I imagined the best and worst of what that world could be. And I wrote. I enjoyed writing and getting to the characters, getting to discover them. And sometimes I fell out with characters. For a very long time, I thought I was in sync with Miisi because he had elements of my perspective and my perception of my own education. But I later moved away from him. The person who took me by surprise was the great aunt. I fell in love with her and she was a peripheral character. I did not develop her very much. She just kept coming back and coming back and pushing her way onto this page and in the end, I really loved her. And I enjoyed writing [about] her, as well.”
Since publishing Kintu, Makumbi’s confidence has grown. “There's nothing like publishing your novel and holding it in your hands.” she says. “The thing that didn't exist now does. And your name is on the cover.” The insecurities that she battles as an African-centered writer in the West lessen with each new publication and the affirmation of readers worldwide. Makumbi has also started writing in a community with other writers. “I've learned that I should always be a part of a writing group, sharing my writing with other people and learning from them and their critiques. It's very easy to say to a writer, ‘You're wonderful!’ It's very hard for someone to tell you, ‘I don't know what's going on here with your book.’ That is something that I take away with each book. You always need help.”
Makumbi shares that readers can look forward to several more books from her over the next decade. Having also grown up on the work of Enid Blyton, the author of The Secret Seven, Famous Five, and Five Find Outters series, Makumbi shares, “I've always wanted to read books about Africans and African children exploring and going on adventures. That is something that is missing.”
In another project, she plans to shift away from Uganda and pan out to “the whole of Africa and the Diaspora as a single unit, centering ideas of Pan-Africanism during an age of Africa emerging as a power,” she says. “I’m looking at the people behind the machinery and how they manage to survive in a world that is hostile to African development.”
Makumbi shares a beautiful message to her readers — assured of and appreciative of their love and support over the years across borders. “I am so grateful to you, especially my African readers. You are the people who talk about my writing by word of mouth. You blog about it. You write about it. You validate me. Thank you to those who have stuck with me and to those who have defended my writing. To my readers around the world, thank you very much.”