![]() ![]() Kamu protests: “Why are you tying me like a thief?” A mob swirls into being like a weather formation, the word thief flying “from here to there, first as a question then as a fact.” Kicks and blows begin to rain down on him, from both the elderly and the young. He assumes they’re there on behalf of a creditor but when they reach a marketplace, they bind his hands. A woman opens it to four local officials, who rouse her man, Kamu, from sleep and lead him outside for questioning. The implications of this titular oxymoron-a word that means both “thing” and “man”-begin to unfold in the opening pages of Makumbi’s book. In both countries, it is pronounced chin-two and it means “thing.” In ancient Buganda mythology, however, Kintu is also the name of the first man, the equivalent to the Judeo-Christian Adam. ![]() In Zambia, where I’m from, we spell this word chinthu. ![]() Luganda is a Bantu language spoken in Uganda Bantu is a proto-language that just means people there are languages derived from it all across the African continent. The title of Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s magisterial first novel, Kintu-first published in Kenya in 2014, then in the US this year by the Oakland-based press Transit Books-is a Luganda word. ![]()
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