In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Summary and Reviews of Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Kintu

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Paperback:
  • May 2017, 446 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

First published in Kenya in 2014 to critical and popular acclaim, Kintu is a modern classic, a multilayered narrative that reimagines the history of Uganda through the cursed bloodline of the Kintu clan.

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.

Buddu Province, Buganda
The Moon of Gatonya, 1750

The party formed a snaking retinue. They walked downhill from Kintu's courtyard, through cultivated plots on his land, past silent shadowy houses until they came to the bottom near the well where village residents collected water. The moon, as if shy, still hid behind a cloud. But midnight darkness was beginning to loosen. Kintu looked in the distance but the night yielded no horizon. Yet to him, the landscape was clear. He knew every rise and fall in the earth, every bush and thicket and every old tree intimately.

By the time the party came to Nswera, a large stream that cut Kiyirika Village off from the rest of Buddu Province, the fireflies had gone to sleep. The moon now tailed them at a distance like a nosy little brother. It was good timing, the walkers needed light to cross the swamp. Nswera was in a huge basin: its edges were steep while the bottom was flat.

Ten men descended into the swamp before Kintu allowed his sons to...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Kintu is by far my favorite book of the year (perhaps of the past several), and it will undoubtedly appeal to fiction lovers who enjoy immersing themselves in other cultures. I found this debut absolutely unforgettable and am sure it will win Makumbi many fans. Highly recommended!..continued

Full Review Members Only (844 words)

(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).

Media Reviews

The New Inquiry
Kintu is a masterpiece, an absolute gem, the great Ugandan novel you didn't know you were waiting for.

New Delta Review
Kintu is not just the story of a family, but a story of Uganda, a country whose history begins before colonialization and encompasses far more than just that chapter.

Wawa Book Review
Makumbi is clearly a creative genius.

Nyana Kakoma, Africa In Words
Our histories and our names have stories that we cannot afford to keep quiet about.

Library Journal
Starred Review. Reminiscent of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, this work will appeal to lovers of African literature.

Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A masterpiece of cultural memory, Kintu is elegantly poised on the crossroads of tradition and modernity.

Author Blurb Ellah Allfrey, editor of Africa39
A work of bold imagination and clear talent.

Author Blurb Jamal Mahjoub, author of The Drift Latitudes
An ambitious modern epic that takes in family saga and the history of Uganda, fusing the urgency of the present with the timelessness of myth.

Author Blurb Maaza Mengiste, author of Beneath the Lion's Gaze
This is an extraordinary novel about a family bound together by love, betrayal, and an age-old curse, told in gripping language that continually surprises. A literary triumph.

Reader Reviews

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



A Brief History of Uganda

Kintu is set in Uganda, a landlocked country in central Africa bordered by South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and The Democratic Republic of Congo. It is home to approximately 39 million individuals (2015).

Human activity in the region that is now Uganda dates back at least 50,000 years as evidenced by stone tools found in the area. Around 2000 years ago, it is thought that Bantu-speaking people started to settle the area bringing with them simple agriculture and use of metal tools. Etymologically speaking, Bantu simply means "people." The Bantu peoples most likely migrated from near modern-day Nigeria around 3,000 years ago eventually spreading across most of sub-Saharan Africa. Today there are over 300 ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Kintu, try these:

  • A Girl is A Body of Water jacket

    A Girl is A Body of Water

    by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

    Published 2021

    About this book

    More by this author

    International-award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi's novel is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family: who they are, what history has taken from them, and--most importantly--how they find their way back to each other.

    Published as The First Woman in the UK.

  • Woman of the Ashes jacket

    Woman of the Ashes

    by David Brookshaw, Mia Couto

    Published 2019

    About this book

    The first in a trilogy about the last emperor of southern Mozambique by one of Africa's most important writers.

We have 8 read-alikes for Kintu, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...
  • Book Jacket
    The MANIAC
    by Benjamin Labatut
    The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut is an ambitious work that falls squarely into the category of fiction...
  • Book Jacket: Blood Test
    Blood Test
    by Charles Baxter
    Brock Hobson is a loving single father, a Sunday School teacher, and an upstanding and honest ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

Who Said...

Every good journalist has a novel in him - which is an excellent place for it.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..