Jennifer Makumbi in Nairobi, on her East Africa book tour. Photo by Huza Press.

The Ugandan novelist Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi has begun her East Africa book tour to promote her new short story collection.

Published in the UK this May by Oneworld as Manchester Happened, and forthcoming in the US in July from Transit as Let’s Tell This Story Properly, the collection is an anticipated one—especially coming after her 2018 Windham-Campbell Prize win, secured her by the impact of her novel Kintu. It was recently nominated by Harper’s Bazaar for the 2019 Big Book Awards.

The title story of the collection, “Lets Tell This Story Properly,” won Makumbi the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and appeared in Granta. Another, “She Is Our Stupid,” recently appeared on Literary Hub.

Here is a description of the book on Amazon:

How far does one have to travel to find home elsewhere? The stories in Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s collection attempt to measure that distance. Centered around the lives of Ugandans in Britain, Let’s Tell This Story Properly features characters both hyper-visible and unseen―they take on jobs at airport security, care for the elderly, and work in hospitals, while remaining excluded from white, British life. As they try to find their place, they drift from a home that feels further and further away. In an ambitious collection by the critically acclaimed author of Kintu, Let’s Tell This Story Properly explores what happens to those who leave.

The tour, which began on 9 May and will end on 17 May, will see her make three stops in Nairobi, Kenya; Kigali, Rwanda; and Kampala, Uganda.

TOUR DATES

9 May

  • Goethe Institut, Nairobi | 06: 00 p.m.

10 May

  • Prestige Books, Mama Ngina Street, Nairobi | 06: 00 p.m.

11 May

  • Goethe-Institut, Kigali | 06: 00 p.m.

15-17 May

  • Uganda International Writers Conference, Kampala

And excitement.