Book Review: A Girl is a Body of Water
“Columns of rainwater, formed by the corrugated iron roof, fell like lines of colourless strings.”
Jennifer Mansubuga Makumbi, author of Kintu, her first novel, won the Kwani Manuscript Prize in 2013 and was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize in 2014. Publishers Weekly Best Books
of 2017. Winner of the Windham-Campbell Prize. Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. With good reviews on this novel. Therefore, I was anticipating and eager to read this novel, A Girl is a Body of Water.
This coming of age novel is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family, who they are, what history has taken from them, and most importantly, how they find their way back to each other. The story transitioned from Kirabo’s life in Ugandan village of Nattetta, Eastern Africa. then the story switches to epistolary form and tells the story of Mirro, Nsuuta and Alikisa in earlier years, 1930-1940’s In Uganda and how the Europeans changed time, arranged marriages. The novel touches on wealth, manipulation of the female genitalia, and Girls who excelled in math, science and physics were looked upon as intersexual freaks because it was a masculine discipline.
"...only ugly girls carry on to become nurses and teachers.”, " ...with her beauty, she did not need education. Education was for ugly girls—to give them value. a home does not need both husband and wife to work.”
I appreciated the short history of the Gods or Goddesses of Water mentioned in the story,
such as Ursula Yemaya (water deity from the Yoruba religion. Yemoja is motherly and strongly protective, and cares deeply for all her children, comforting them and cleansing them of sorrow. She is said to be able to cure infertility in women, and cowrie shells represent her wealth. She does not easily lose her temper, but when angered she can be quite destructive and violent, as the flood waters of turbulent rivers. I also paused my reading to do a little research on Idi Amin Dada Oumee, the 3rd President of Uganda (1971-1979). Considered one of the cruelest deposts in world history. His portrait hangs on the wall of a shop within the story.
The novel was very hard to read with a lot of referencing to Uganda customs, dialog, regions and terminology. But pushing past that, it was a mystical story, a mirror into the feminist views from 1970s, 80s Uganda. I enjoyed the historical fiction aspect of the novel. The writing was very descriptive and characters were well developed. Overall the story was well defined and rendered a great read.
About the Author
She is currently working on her second novel and a collection of short stories, Travel is to See, Return is to Tell. Jennifer lives in Manchester, UK --- Goodreads
Visit the authors' Website at http://jennifermakumbi.net/
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