Manchester Happened

A collection of 12 short stories, divided into two sections - one half concentrating on Ugandans’ experiences in Britain, specifically Manchester, and the other on Ugandans returning to Uganda after some years away. Some characters feature several times, the main one being Poonah - a delightful creation with a subtle, wry take on life - and the stories involving her are my favourites.

The stories are political with a light, unchallenging touch, particularly so where the colonial British legacy in Uganda is concerned. One entire story, though, ‘My brother, Bwemage’, is concerned with recent Chinese involvement in Uganda, its economic and social ramifications.

The author writes in a cool, unfaltering style that engaged me straightaway. She presents her characters’ experiences and dilemmas with insight and delicacy, and the final sentences of many of the stories are especially poignant. There is a deal of Ugandan vocabulary in the dialogue with no translation into English - I didn’t find it difficult to understand what was meant and I think it often gave a sense of the vibrancy of Ugandan family life - some of the dialogue is priceless. An entertaining collection that introduced me to a country, the people who left it and those who returned, and a culture that I knew little about. I’d recommend it highly.

This is a collection of short stories from Ugandan writer Jennifer Makumbi about the experiences of (mostly) women emigrating from Africa to live in Manchester, and the struggles that they encounter immersed in a foreign culture. The stories in the second half of the book deal with emigrants returning home to find that they no longer quite fit in Uganda either.

These stories reminded me very much of Junot Diaz, in that Makumbi is adept at immersing the reader in the language and culture of an ethnic enclave living in a foreign city. Like Diaz, she has some recurring characters that she builds a narrative arc for across different stories. The collection is carefully put together and shines quite a different light on the emigrant experience.