Kintu
SynopsisPlot
Divided into six sections, the novel begins in 1750, when Kintu Kidda sets out for the capital to pledge allegiance to the new leader of the Buganda Kingdom. Along the way, he unleashes a curse that will plague his family for generations. In an ambitious tale of a clan and a nation, Makumbi weaves together the stories of Kintu’s descendants as they seek to break from the burden of their shared past and reconcile the inheritance of tradition and the modern world that is their future.
Story
About this book
Kintu opens in 1750 with Kintu Kidda traveling to the capital of the Buganda Kingdom to swear loyalty to its new ruler. During this journey, an act of his sets a curse in motion, one that will follow his bloodline across generations. The novel is structured in six sections, each centering on different descendants of the Kintu clan as they live under the shadow of that original event.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi uses the family's story to trace a longer arc of Ugandan history, from the pre-colonial Buganda Kingdom through to the pressures and contradictions of contemporary life. Each descendant faces a distinct set of circumstances, but all share the question of how to live with an inherited past they did not choose. Tensions between older customs and newer ways of organizing life run through the separate narratives without being reduced to a simple opposition.
The novel was first published in Kenya in 2014, where it received both critical and popular attention. Makumbi, a Ugandan writer, constructed the book as a work of historical and domestic fiction grounded in Ganda culture and geography, giving the Buganda Kingdom and its surroundings a detailed fictional presence that spans roughly two and a half centuries.
