Virtual Event: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes award-winning writer JENNIFER NANSUBUGA MAKUMBI—author of Kintu: A Novel—for the paperback release of her latest, acclaimed novel, A Girl Is A Body of Water. She will be joined in conversation by LESLEY NNEKA ARIMAH, author of the Kirkus Prize–winning story collection What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky.

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About A Girl Is A Body of Water

In her thirteenth 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. 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.

Praise for A Girl Is A Body of Water

"A wonder—as clear, vivid, moving, powerful, and captivatingly unpredictable as water itself." —Namwali Serpell, author of The Old Drift

"Superb. An intoxicating tale that combines mythic and modern elements to make the headiest of feminist brews." —Irenosen Okojie, author of Nudibranch

"In her characteristically page-turning and engaging style, Makumbi lays bare the complex power dynamics of patriarchy, capitalism and neocolonialism, not through academic jargon but via that most effective tool of education—storytelling. An achingly beautiful tale." —Sylvia Tamale