A GIRL IS A BODY OF WATER

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.