PositiveChicago Review of Books... a hypnotic translation by Julia Sanches ... The motif of silence, this ever-present ellipsis, becomes, in Ruffato’s hands, double-edged. In certain instances, he wields it to contrast the noisy complexity of adulthood/modernity with a simpler, sepia-tinged time, frequently resurrected by Oséias in passages that bleed together past and present ... Nevertheless, silence also marks the uncomfortable present, distancing the characters from one another ... While the other characters, especially the women, often come off flat—the author’s zeal to show the larger societal forces at work transforms them into types—we learn that João Lúcio has lovingly maintained the family crypt, that he hosts his employees at his country estate on weekends, that he may not know what to say to Oséias, but he welcomes him into his fancy, modern home ... It’s in this propulsive rhythm where Sanches’ translation most shines, handling the staccato reiteration of subject-verb-object with aplomb, and buoying the author’s stylistic experimentation with a few tricks up English’s sleeve ... What makes Ruffato’s oeuvre so relatable to American readers is precisely that face of Brazil we so rarely glimpse from the outside: its multiculturalism, its messy modernity and glaring inequities, the way collectively it, too, chooses silence rather than confront its own shortcomings—until it’s too late.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
PositiveThe Literary Review\"Indeed, [the book\'s] epic scope and Makumbi’s stated objective of following in Achebe’s footsteps to impart to Ugandans their own often-overlooked history (as Aaron Bady points out in his excellent introduction), make such comparisons unavoidable ... To be sure, Kintu is an ambitious novel, perhaps overly ambitious. Each of its six books would have made an engrossing read on its own, and at times it can feel as if the author is hurrying through a character’s personal CV or scrambling to tie up loose ends before moving on to the next character. But given the equally ambitious themes Makumbi addresses... one may respond that the structure is entirely appropriate ... At any rate, it makes for a page-turner, because just as the reader sinks into the story of one character, her assumptions are upended with the introduction of the next perspective ... Where Makumbi excels as a storyteller is her ability to shroud these family ties in mystery, keeping the reader guessing until the final book ... Kintu is a book not just for Ugandans, but for all of us.\
