The cover for Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s second novel The First Woman, to be published by Oneworld on June 4, 2020, has been revealed.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, who won the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction last year, first came to prominence when she won the Kwani Manuscript Project in 2013. She would give us an exquisite gem of a novel called Kintu that has been praised universally for breaking new ground in writing from the continent. It was longlisted or shortlisted for prizes like the Etisalat Prize and the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Prize.
In 2014, her short story Let’s Tell This Story Properly won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Africa region then the global prize. That story was included in the collection of short stories published by the Ugandan-born Manchester-based writer called Manchester Happened in 2019.
A new novel from the writer is expected on June 4, 2020, called The First Woman. It is described by the publisher Oneworld as, “a powerful feminist rendition of Ugandan origin tales, The First Woman tells the story of Kirabo, the equivalent of Eve in Ugandan mythology. Smart, headstrong and flawed, Kirabo is raised by doting grandparents in idyllic Nattetta in rural Uganda. But as she enters her teens, she starts to feel overshadowed by the absence of the mother she has never known. At once epic and deeply personal, it tells the story of one young girl’s search for her mother, her discovery of what it means to be a woman throughout history and the implications for her future.”
The cover was revealed today by the publisher Juliet Mabey on a tweet that states; “Thrilled to reveal our cover for The First Woman, the new novel by Jennifer Makumbi Nansubuga (Kintu, Manchester Happened), designed by the extraordinary Nathan Burton.”
Thrilled to reveal our cover for The First Woman, the new novel by Jennifer Makumbi Nansubuga (Kintu, Manchester Happened), designed by the extraordinary Nathan Burton @buronint @OneworldNews pic.twitter.com/lIWPj6yuj6
— Juliet Mabey (@Jule9) November 8, 2019
Makumbi in a statement said: “I am delighted that Oneworld has bought the rights to The First Woman. After publishing my first novel, Kintu and my second book, Manchester Happened, Oneworld is on board with my dreams, intentions and aspirations. Oneworld has handled my writing with sensitivity and understanding.”
2 replies on “Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s novel “The First Woman” cover revealed.”
[…] writer is The First Woman (UK) or A Girl is a Body of Water (USA). The cover for the book was revealed in June; this blogger is currently reading it and it is really […]
[…] Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi first came to continental fame in the literary community when she entered and won the Kwani Manuscript Prize in 2013. Part of the reward for winning this prize was that her manuscript then called The Kintu Saga was to be published. When the book came out a year later under the Kwani Trust label it was titled Kintu. It quickly established the novelist as one of the leading literary names from East Africa. She has since gone on to fame and (some) fortune with other books like the short story collection Manchester Happened and the novel The First Daughter. […]