First thing
the award-winning Ugandan writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi told us after
arriving at Nairobi’s Goethe Institute last Thursday night was that it was
right here in Kenya that her literary career had been launched. This is where
her stunning multi-generational opus, ‘Kintu’, made its official entry into the
African and global world of letters.
But she
quickly went into a whisper saying her Ugandan audience need not hear such
words coming from her mouth. “Don’t tell Ugandans!,” she says. “They are
already sensitive about ‘Kintu’ having been launched here. They didn’t like it,”
she adds.
Nonetheless,
she returned to the centre where it all began, Goethe Institute, to launch her just-published
second book. This time, however, ‘Manchester Happened’ is not a novel but a set
of eleven delicious short stories, “… plus the Prologue which is a short story
in itself,” adds the evening’s Moderator, Zukiswa Wanner who has already read
the book and is clearly delighted to talk about her favorite stories with their
author.
Zuki sets
the evening off by inviting Jennifer to read a portion of one of her short
stories. It’s about two sisters, one who follows the other to London and the
two eventually have a falling out. The story is vividly told with the older,
established diasporan Ugandan already being a lawyer while her 14-year-old
sister is a complicated adolescent whose expectations are not met in the life
she finds in the West.
Jennifer
reads dramatically with the rich dialogues spoken with various voices. But just
as the story is about to reach a climax, she stops at Zuki’s signal. We have
been captivated by the story and hunger for more. But no, Jennifer’s improvised
story telling is just as hypnotic as the reading of her own writing.
A keen
observer of especially fellow Ugandans’ behavior, she’s been living abroad for
many years and so is very familiar with those living in the Diaspora.
Another
story that she reads in part is about a couple of Ugandans who were living in
Manchester, but he dies and she is left to bring his body home. She receives no
expression of gratitude for acting according to tradition. Instead, she is
treated like an outsider, even as she finds the dead man had another family
back home and they are living in the house she helped the man to build.
Before she
can even consider claiming her territory and her legal status as the dead man’s
wife, his father tells her to keep a low profile and not upset the apple cart.
She is not to let her identity be known he says. And she obeys. Yet a ‘gang’ of
older woman come to her rescue and defend her publicly at the funeral. But what
happens next is left a mystery by the writer who again stops just as the plot
thickens. Once again, we see the need to get our own copy of the book to find
out the story’s end.
Jennifer’s
stories mix a large portion of humor with a heavy dose of realism and detailed
insight into the quirks of human--particularly Ugandan--character.
Zuki notes,
however, that the way Jennifer describes the conduct of Ugandans living in the Diaspora
can apply to the conduct of Zimbabweans, Nigerians and most other Africans she has
met abroad.
Jennifer
shares a snippet of one last story which has more than whet our appetite to get
our hands on ‘Manchester Happened’. Surprisingly, it’s a dog story and it’s
written from the dogs’ point of view. It’s about two dogs, one a ‘pariah’ who
takes pride in living in the street and being self-sufficient, not reliant on
any man. The other is a ‘pet’, a tiny, fluffy short thing that the pariah
equates with a rat. The Pariah somehow gets into a conversation with the pet
who he looks down on, but who is very satisfied living under a master, having a
roof over her head and regular meals. It’s a hilarious story of discrimination
and class consciousness. But again, Jennifer stops before she gets into the
really juicy part. Apparently, the pet’s owner is a human trafficker. But as to
the details, Jennifer only says that she does address some political issues in
her writing, but never in a sledge-hammer style.
Before Zuki opens
the discussion to the audience, she notes that Jennifer is a professor,
something the writer hesitates to claim. She notes that when people put you in
the category of Professor or Doctor, they tend to bracket you off as somehow
separate. But she inadvertently admits that she lectures at the university
level.
“I don’t discuss
it much, only when a student gets out of hand, I will then remind him, ‘I am a
Ph.D, you know!’
Her modesty
is impressive, but no more so than her exquisite writing. Nairobi was indeed
privileged to have Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi come to launch her second
hard-cover book here. But before the evening ends, Zuki reminds us that it is
thanks to Prestige Bookshop which teamed up with Goethe Institute to bring Jennifer
to Nairobi for the book launch. Also, the following day, May 10th, she
is doing another book signing at Prestige for everyone who didn’t get a copy of
her books at Goethe.
No comments:
Post a Comment