Highlights for Kintu

Indeed, this is the challenge of the historical novel: whether or not the stories are true might be the least important thing about them. History as it’s written down in books is one thing, but history as it’s lived is another.

When the Europeans left, educated Ugandans climbed out of the swamps, slaked off the mud, and took to the hills and raw Ugandans flooded the swamps. Up in the hills, educated Ugandans assumed the same contempt as Europeans had for them.

For those whose jobs came as rarely as a yam’s flower this was a chance to feel useful.

Tradition claimed that identical twins were one soul who, failing to resolve the primal conflict in the self, split—and two people were born.

Every time a set of twins arrived, they shook his hand, “A strong man may wake up late and still get to do as much as we who woke up with the birds.”

He knew the snare of being a man. Society heaped such expectations on manhood that in a bid to live up to them some men snapped.

He had never discussed his role in her rise in status because 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.

I tell you fellow men: never negotiate with a woman. Their sense is not our sense.

Of course, when a nation has plenty and peace reigns, foreigners start to flock in. And you know with foreigners: they bring their troubles with them.

Everyone’s face turned and stared at Suubi as if her father killing his twin was written on her body.

Britain and America were the lands of humanity, the places Miisi longed to be. The real Britain took him by surprise.

She corrected herself, “These things have no place in the modern world.”

“As long as there are Africans in the world, there will always be someone seeking these things,”the woman laughed.

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