Rebecca Cook
Village Whispers
In this feminist coming-of-age epic, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi tracks the early life of Kirabo, a young girl growing up in the Ugandan village of Nattetta in the 1970s. With a mother who abandoned her at birth and a father who works in the city, Kirabo is raised by her stern but doting grandparents.
The novel is ostensibly about Kirabo’s search for her absent mother, beginning when she solicits the help of the village witch, Nsuuta, to track her down. During these initial clandestine meetings, Nsuuta teaches both Kirabo and the reader the bygone tales of Ugandan folklore. It is here that the novel’s central question of what it means to be a woman is first brought into focus.
‘Stories are critical,’ Nsuuta tells Kirabo. ‘The minute we fall silent, someone will fill the silence for us.’ The weight Makumbi gives to storytelling is apparent in both the lofty Ugandan myths Nsuuta shares with Kirabo and the village whispers that echo through the novel. In this small rural community,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Empathy is our moral portal gun, and it jams from underuse.'
Don Paterson on Portal 2, catching Covid on the Eurostar, and rereading Ian Hamilton’s 'Against Oblivion'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/portal-agony
'Few people ... have ever taken Bunting, in his deep strangeness, as representing anything or anyone beyond himself.'
@nemoloris on Basil Bunting, the 'demon of delinquency'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/long-road-to-briggflatts
'Most national anthems start at the top and find their place with the people ... few come from the people and find their place at the top, though I still live in hope for "Sunshine on Leith".'
Robert Colls on how 'Jerusalem' became our unofficial anthem.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/o-clouds-unfold