Kintu: From the winner of the Jhalak Prize, 2021

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

waving ‘democracy’ at them, who had recently laughed, ‘Did I actually say democracy? I was sooo naive then.’ Thief was tax-collectors taking their money to redistribute it to the rich. Thief was God poised with a can of aerosol

If the soul is at conflict even at this remotest level of existence, what chance do communities have? This made the Ganda custom of marrying female identical twins to the same man preposterous. It

Besides, identical men did not marry the same woman.

The women kept asking: Why he was chasing her at this time of the night? All Gitta said was, Hurry, help me. I looked long at Gitta, grey all over but still craving young cunt. I thought, surely there must be a point at which a man can say enough is enough and hang up his manly eggs?’

‘My wife woke me up and said: Your friend nearly died. Which friend? I asked. The aged bull that grazes among calves, she said and I shut her up.’

Society heaped such expectations on manhood that in a bid to live up to them some men snapped.

Lwera was the shallows of Lake Nnalubaale. But one day the sun, the lusty fool, attempted to kiss the lake and it shrank.

Sleep is a thief: at dawn, despite staying awake all night, despite the death of his son, sleep stole Kintu away.

Now Nnanteza brought water in a calabash and knelt before him. Two tutus, short sturdy breasts, as if swollen, came close. Even when she leaned forward they refused to bow. Kintu stole a closer look: she had those rare breasts that are so wide at the base that there was almost no space between them – yet, they don’t glut out. Five sons would knock them up and down and those breasts would bounce back, erect, Kintu thought.

He had been a muvule tree: tall and erect. He was charming, if a bit too good-looking and aware of it. The fact that he was a warrior who made both men and women groan beneath him had propped Ssentalo’s manliness to unprecedented heights.

‘Don’t ever try men out of curiosity,’ Ssentalo had winked mischievously. ‘It’s like a river: a one-way flow for many people, no return. Once you have heard the hoarse groan of a man, felt the moist hairy skin and drunk the scent of male sweat you will not want to hold a woman again.

Gay governors in Buganda Kingdom

‘If you want to make the arduous sexual labour through your wives bearable, here is the medicine. When you return home, rather than ravish Nnakato first, start with the wife that repels you most. Then work your way from the repellents to the favourites. Keep Nnakato for last. It’s like eating sugar cane: the anticipated sweetness of the bottom pieces makes the top bits, which taste like tears, bearable.’

words not only travel, but they acquire legs and arms along the way. And by the time they get to the person talked about, they are beyond recognition.

Best description of gossip

Baale had been reluctant to marry because he still wanted to kulya butaala like an untethered goat.

‘I am not talking about the breathless girls you steal with behind bushes. You know, the ones that challenge: Show me your sun rising and I’ll show you heaven. Who, before you even get started, are quaking: I hear someone coming.’

‘Don’t worry about women. I was like you but with time I worked them out. You see, we Ganda, we don’t leave the propagation of the nation to chance. You must know what you’re getting into before we place our bid on Ntongo’s lap.

"We don't leave the propagation to chance" - Was someone entrusted with this?

‘I asked: What is it? She whispered: Nothing. I said: Something is, but she just wept. I took the husband aside and asked: When was the last time you touched her? He started: You see, I’ve been clearing a virgin land. You see, the rains are coming. You see, I need to start planting … I said, Shut up. I see your home crumbling. Can virgin land cheat on you? Now go in there and fuck the steam out of her.

I can't add my thoughts to this.

When it rains on a pauper, it does not stop to allow his clothes to dry.

The kitchen and pantry were rented by a couple who behaved like strangers during the day, but the wife was always pregnant and nursing a baby.

A shy teenage girl lived in the garage which faced away from the other rooms because it opened outside. She was kept by an old man who drove a sleek Mercedes. The girl had been in a boarding school when she stole herself away and came to Kampala with the old man who ‘parked’ her in the garage.

That woman thrives on anger like maggots on shit.

Suubi wished she could say to Opolot that her memory was a scratched disc, that it jumped and skipped. Sometimes it didn’t play at all.