In her 13th year, Kirabo confronts a piercing question: who is my
mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small Ugandan village of
Nattetta — her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts — but the
absence of her mother follows her like a shadow.
اضافة اعلان
Seeking answers from Nsuuta, the local witch, Kirabo learns about the
woman who birthed her, who she discovers is alive but not ready to meet. Nsuuta
also helps Kirabo understand the emergence of a mysterious second self, a
headstrong and confusing force inside her — this, says Nsuuta, is a streak of
the “first woman”: an independent, original state that has been all but lost to
women.
Kirabo’s journey to reconcile these feelings, alongside her desire to
reconnect with her mother and to honor her family’s expectations, is rich in
the folklore of Uganda and an arresting exploration of what it means to be a
modern girl in a world that seems determined to silence women.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s “A Girl is a Body of Water” is
an unforgettable, sweeping testament to the true and lasting connections
between history, tradition, family, friends, and the promise of a different
future.
Trading stories is foundational to Ugandan culture. In fact, it is how
Makumbi introduces her young protagonist — eager to tell a story she has been
practicing. And her hunger for storytelling permeates the novel through Kirabo
at 12, engaging the annoyed teenagers of her village in storytelling by
activating a cultural etiquette that they must abide by in the presence of
adults.
Stories are the collateral Kirabo uses to bribe Nsuuta to learn about
her absent mother against her grandmother’s wishes. When Kirabo’s father brings
her to live with him and his family, stories keep her connected to her family
in Nattetta, but stories, even when not meant for her, are also how she learns
about herself.
She discovers while eavesdropping on her “new” stepmother and step-grandmother
that she was “born on the edges of the family unit, and was therefore
peripheral, regardless of her position as the eldest child.” And when her
father died abruptly in his mid-thirties, family and friends paid their respect
by telling stories.
Makumbi pays a similar respect to her characters by how she tells their
stories. Kirabo and Nsuuta and even Kirabo’s grandmother Alikisa are treated
with such care in the novel, you can almost hear the splashes and smell the
earth when the two elders are dancing in the rain in the final pages.
Kirabo grows from a scared and resentful child when in the presence of
her stepmother, to a respectful and compassionate young woman who finally
allows herself to feel for her stepmother when she is all but outcast from the
family after the death of her husband.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this novel is its relevance, from
the ideas of mwenkanonkano (feminism) to the importance of having a voice and
representation.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize and her
first novel, “Kintu,”
won the Kwani Manuscript Project Prize in 2013 and was longlisted for the
Etisalat Prize in 2014. Her story “Let’s Tell This Story Properly” was the
global winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Jennifer lives in
Manchester, UK with her husband and son.
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