A Girl Is A Body of Water
Author: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Publisher: Tin House Books
Publication Date: September 1, 2020
“‘The minute we fall silent, someone will fill the silence for us.’” Kirabo, coming into her thirteenth year, is growing up in rural 1970s Uganda. Her culture has both saved and silenced her. Abandoned by her 13-year-old mother, Kirabo is being raised by a grandmother and aunts. Despite their efforts to “love the mother out of the child”, Kirabo yearns to find the woman who left her but all questions about her mother are unanswered. Coming of age, she also begins to recognize a second self, a rebellious and unreconciled identity that is at odds with her sweet and eager-to-please nature. She begins to look for answers to her past and a place for her selves away from home, sneaking to the village witch and bonding more with her distanced father. Growth for Kirabo is about more than age and physical maturity. Before she can find her place in the world, she must collect, understand, and make a whole person from the pieces of who she is.
A Girl Is A Body of Water feels almost too rich – in language, personalities, cultural and physical setting, and transformative experience – to lend itself to mere summarization. More than most authors, Makumbi allows the reader to inhabit her main character’s perspective. And despite being a girl’s “coming of age” story, it is not full of trite assumptions. For example, powerful use of Ugandan folklore brings up questions of what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated world, but at the same time questions whether a man with social power is a man with an easy life. The expansive introduction to Ugandan culture is done deftly, primarily conveyed via Kirabo’s interactions with her large family. Evocative language and elaborate description strengthen the story without excessively burdening it.
One of the most striking characteristics of Makumbi’s story is the unfiltered honesty of the incidents and themes that eventually define Kirabo - as if the author were a battlefield photographer doing her best not just to tell, but to show, not sparing any discomfort and closing the gap between observation and experience. Powerfully candid writing about relationships and struggles with body images may make some readers uncomfortable. And the proofreading at a few points was a little spotty. But these are trivialities. A Girl Is A Body of Water is a captivating, exquisitely told, and emotionally outspoken story. I would recommend it to older YA readers and adults looking for a thoughtful, vivid piece of realistic fiction best read and digested slowly.
- D. K. Nuray
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