Transmutation and Temporality: Shifting Figures of African Women in Jennifer Makumbi’s Historical Novel Kintu (2014)

Abstract

The role of African women writers in employing the unique style of presenting several generations of women characters in the same historical novel to narrate how the world of women has been transformed across time cannot be naysaid. Through this style, female authors have been able to re-examine, re-construct, re-structure and reinvent the (mis)representation of female gender as construed by male authors who were the first to acquire formal education and embark in creative writing. Thus the choice of this distinctive style often serves as an important marker of backdating the true depiction of women across the historical trajectory as well as demonstrating the gainful transmutation that women have gone through towards their liberation from the chains of patriarchy. Among the African women writers who have adopted this style is Jeniffer Makumbi the author of Kintu. Grounded in both New historicist and feminist theoretical frameworks, we interrogate how women have gradually and gainfully changed towards liberation across the four epochs specific to Africa; namely: Pre-colonial, Colonial, postcolonial and contemporary. Using purposively selected Jenniffer Makumbi’s novel – Kintu – the article provides a textual analysis of the behaviours, speeches and actions exhibited by different generations of female characters who fall within the aforementioned epochs to demonstrate their historical transmutation towards liberation.