A Girl Is a Body of Water

I’m nearing the end of my July reading challenge to read books set in Africa. My third book was A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi; this has been high on my TBR since it came out two years ago. It’s set in Uganda, and marks my first time reading a book set there.

Summary

It’s 1975, and Kirabo has just turned 12. As a baby her dad Tom left her with his parents; she never knew her mom, and no one will tell Kirabo anything about her. But now she’s determined to learn the truth, and she turns to the so-called witch down the street. As Kirabo comes of age—gaining an education when most girls in her village don’t, moving in with her dad and his wife in Kampala, going to an all-girls boarding school—she learns more about her family history and who she is on her own.

Review

At over 500 pages, A Girl Is a Body of Water is a book to settle into, but it is fully worth the time. It tackles many themes and narrative arcs, spanning timelines in the 1930s and the 1970s-80s, and Kirabo is the strong-willed protagonist driving the story forward.

Kirabo has been raised by her grandparents since she can remember, and though it’s the 1970s in rural Uganda, they are fierce proponents of women’s rights through education and preventing unwanted pregnancies. Kirabo knows she will complete school so she can go on to live on her own terms. Still, she has some insecurities stemming from her absentee father and the mother she’s never known. Does Kirabo have an evil twin flying out of her when she misbehaves? Is she bad for telling stories and wanting to find her mom? She ultimately seeks out the local witch, Nsuuta, even though her grandmother is against it. Perhaps Nsuuta can teach Kirabo about her mom… or perhaps about witchcraft.

Her world expands in 1977, when her father Tom takes her to live with him in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. There Kirabo puts up with her cruel step-mother while hoping she’ll find her real mother somewhere within the city. But before long, she on to the next chapter of her adolescence: attending a boarding school, with all the friendships and scholastic learning that comes with. This further bolsters Kirabo’s path towards goings against the patriarchal society still prevalent in her home village.

Until now, family secrets—surrounding her mother’s identity and whatever caused the rift between Kirabo’s grandmother and the witch Nsuuta—have eluded both Kirabo and the reader. But here the story shifts back from the 1980s to the 1930s, revealing the complex relationships that have had decades-long repercussions. How do these revelations impact Kirabo now that’s in her 20s, finishing school, and entering adulthood in the early 1980s?

Final Thoughts

A Girl Is a Body of Water is a phenomenal book that I cannot recommend highly enough! It’s a fully feminist story and offers a look at Uganda in the 1970s-1980s. The only book I’ve read like this was The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré, a contemporary novel set in Nigeria (which I also highly recommend). A Girl Is a Body of Water is a novel that will stay with me, and I’m excited to read more from Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi.

Get the Book

You can buy A Girl is a Body of Water here – it’s available as a hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

A Girl is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Audience	Adult
Genre	Historical Fiction
Setting	Uganda
Number of Pages	545
Format I Read	Hardcover
Original Publication Date	August 13, 2020

Official Summary

“Makumbi is such an honest, truthful writer. . . . I loved every single page.” —Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage

A Best Book of the Year at TIME; The Washington Post; O, the Oprah Magazine; BBC

Winner of the Jhalak Prize

In her thirteenth year, Kirabo confronts a piercing question: who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small Ugandan village of Nattetta—her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts—but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow. Seeking answers from Nsuuta, the local witch, Kirabo learns about the woman who birthed her, who she discovers is alive but not ready to meet. Nsuuta also helps Kirabo understand the emergence of a mysterious second self, a headstrong and confusing force inside her—this, says Nsuuta, is a streak of the “first woman”: an independent, original state that has been all but lost to women.

Kirabo’s journey to reconcile these feelings, alongside her desire to reconnect with her mother and to honor her family’s expectations, is rich in the folklore of Uganda and an arresting exploration of what it means to be a modern girl in a world that seems determined to silence women. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s A Girl is a Body of Water is an unforgettable, sweeping testament to the true and lasting connections between history, tradition, family, friends, and the promise of a different future.