"Spellbinding."
"Makumbi’s rich language and detailed descriptions are a must-read."
"Exhilarating."
"Tender."
"A wonder—as clear, vivid, moving, powerful, and captivatingly unpredictable as water itself."
"Glorious."
"A novel bursting with resilience and warmth. . . . Mixing the mythic and the modern, happily ignoring formal neatness to encompass Uganda’s miscellaneousness, it’s an enthralling achievement."
"Irresistible."
The New York Times Book Review
"Riveting."
"Kirabo's journey of self-discovery is at once inspiring and epic."
"Superb. An intoxicating tale that combines mythic and modern elements to make the headiest of feminist brews."
"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."
"With each new work, Makumbi cements her position as a writer of great influence in our time and for future generations."
"At turns rapturous and devastating. . . . Makumbi's writing uplifts and inspires, evoking the grand tradition of folklore and stories passed down, one woman to the next."
"Mesmerizing."
…a richly complex journey into girlhood and womanhood, set against the backdrop of a changing nation, suffused with glimpses of Uganda's own second selfthe traditions before Christianity, before colonialism, before Idi Amin and many of the "befores" that time has subdued but not quite erased…Makumbi's prose is irresistible and poignant, with remarkable wit, heart and charmpoetic and nuanced, brilliant and sly, openhearted and cunning, balancing discordant truths in wise ruminations. A Girl Is a Body of Water rewards the reader with one of the most outstanding heroines and the incredible honor of journeying by her side.
The New York Times Book Review - Khadija Abdalla Bajaber
07/06/2020
Makumbi’s arresting bildungsroman (after Kintu ) centers on a Ugandan woman growing up in the 1970s as she searches for answers about her mother. As a child, Kirabo lives in rural Nattetta with her paternal grandparents and is occasionally visited by her father, Tom, a successful businessman in Kampala. Though Kirabo is well-loved, she longs to know more about the mother who abandoned her as a baby. When Kirabo is 12, Nsuuta, the local witch and her grandfather’s lover, claims that Kirabo embodies “original state”: the vigor and strength all women possessed before these qualities were destroyed by culture and traditions. Nsuuta also advises Kirabo to avoid looking for her mother, in order to spare her the inevitable rejection from acknowledging a child born outside marriage. When her meetings with Nsuuta are discovered, Kirabo’s grandmother sends her to Kampala, but Tom’s wife refuses to raise another woman’s child, leading Tom to send her to a girls’ boarding school where she thrives intellectually, suffers from loneliness, and falls in love. Kirabo, a strong, empathetic protagonist, reveals a society where women are routinely pitted against one another or silenced. This beautifully rendered saga is a riveting deconstruction of social perceptions of women’s abilities and roles. (Sept.)
★ 08/01/2020
Set in 1970s Uganda, this bewitching coming-of-age novel introduces readers to a smart, feisty heroine, Kirabo Nnamiiro, and her complicated extended family. Though deeply loved by the grandparents who are raising her, Kirabo yearns for knowledge of the woman who abandoned her at birth. She consults Nsuuta, the village seer, who recognizes in Kirabo evidence of the local myth of the first women; fiercely independent, changeable, and powerful, like the water from which they came. An exceptional student, Kirabo moves to Kampala, where her father has agreed to finance her education. It is here, as an observer of her unhappy, powerless stepmother and under the influence of her self-sufficient, modern aunt Abi, that Kirabo will learn to unravel the complexity of her lineage and to navigate the rapidly changing world for women in a modern Uganda. Though the novel is rife with the everyday fact of disappointment and loss, the overall atmosphere is one of joyous, feminist abandon. VERDICT A recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction and the Kwani Manuscript Project for her first novel, Kintu , UK-based Makumbi is a mesmerizing storyteller, slowly pulling readers in with a captivating cast of multifaceted characters and a soupçon of magical realism guaranteed to appeal to fans of Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez, or Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing .—Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL
Narrator Tovah Ott provides a warm performance of this coming-of-age audiobook about a Ugandan girl’s journey to find her mother. Ott’s sonorous voice brings rural 1970s Uganda to life. Tomboyish Kirabo is frustrated by the traditional expectations placed on her by her grandmother. Consulting the town witch provides more questions than answers, and before she can figure out the tumultuous relationship between her grandmother and the witch, Kirabo’s previously absent father takes her to live with him so she can go to boarding school. Ott’s impressive modulation provides distinct voices for multiple characters, fully immersing listeners in a patriarchal society full of strong women. The many family secrets and explorations of tradition will resonate with listeners. A.K.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
★ 2020-06-16 A young girl comes of age in 1970s Uganda.
Makumbi’s latest book is a luminous and sprawling bildungsroman set in Uganda under the rule of Idi Amin. Kirabo, a smart and willful girl, is growing up with her grandparents in a rural village. Her father is off in the city, and Kirabo doesn’t know who her mother is. Worse, no one is willing to tell her. Kirabo starts visiting the local witch, Nsuuta, hoping to learn something. There’s another issue to address, too. Sometimes Kirabo seems to fly outside her own body, to observe herself from without. “Listen,” Nsuuta tells her. “You fly out of your body because our original state is in you.” What is that original state? Nsuuta tells Kirabo that it was “the way women were in the beginning,” when “we were not squeezed inside, we were huge, strong, bold, loud, proud, brave, independent. But it was too much for the world and they got rid of it.” The novel is a magnificent blend of Ugandan folklore and more modern notions of feminism. Eventually, Kirabo finds herself admitted to an elite girls school, where she learns from the older pupils not to shrink inside herself but to take pride in herself and in her body. Kirabo is a wonderful character, as are her best friend and Nsuuta. But Sio, the boy in whom Kirabo takes an interest, never comes fully to life. Occasionally, dialogue between the characters can feel flat, as though the author were inserting her own political beliefs into their mouths. These are relatively minor flaws: As a whole, the novel is a vivid, rambling delight. Makumbi’s prose can be musical and rhythmic or calmly informative, as her narrative requires.
In its depiction of both singular characters and a village community, this book is a jewel.