In Conversation: On A Girl is A Body of Water

Helon Habila is the author of Oil on Water, Measuring Time, Waiting for an Angel, and The Chibok Girls. He is associate professor of creative writing at George Mason University. Accompanying his wife on a prestigious arts fellowship in Berlin, a Nigerian scholar finds there are no walls between his privileged, secure existence and the stories of others in the African diaspora, including a transgender film student seeking the freedom to live an authentic life, a Libyan doctor who lost his wife and son in the waters of the Mediterranean, and a Somalian shopkeeper who tried to save his young daughter from a marriage forced upon her by a militant commander. Both unsettling and luminous, Travelers (W. W. Norton & Company) is a lean, heartrending exploration of loss and connection. Vu Tran, author of Dragonfish praised it simply: “Helon Habila writes with the eye of a journalist, the tools of an artist, and the heart of a sober and compassionate witness.” 

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a Ugandan novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani Manuscript Project in 2013 and was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize in 2014. Her short story collection, “Manchester Happened”, was published in 2019. A Girl is A Body of Water (Tin House Books) tells the journey of Kirabo, a twelve year old Ugandan girl raised by a group of women, to find and reconnect with the mother who abandoned her. It is a tale rich in the folklore of Uganda and an arresting exploration of what it means to be a modern girl in a world that seems determined to silence women. Makumbi’s novel is a sweeping testament to the true and lasting connections between history, tradition, family, friends, and the promise of a different future. The Library Journal called Makumbi “a mesmerizing storyteller, slowly pulling readers in with a captivating cast of multifaceted characters and a soupçon of magical realism guaranteed to appeal to fans of Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez, or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing.”