As Kirabo enters her teens, questions begin to gnaw at her – questions which the adults in her life will do anything to ignore. Where is the mother she has never known? And why would she choose to leave her daughter behind? Inquisitive, headstrong, and unwilling to take no for an answer, Kirabo sets out to find the truth for herself.
Her search will take her away from the safety of her prosperous Ugandan family, plunging her into a very different world of magic, tradition, and the haunting legend of ‘The First Woman’.
The First Woman is an artful blend of Ugandan folklore, different schools of feminism and coming of age. Kirabo navigates her teenage years in 1970s Uganda, balancing different pressures from different family members as to what approach she should take to her education, friendships and relationships.
Kirabo finds it impossible to please everyone. Suspecting that she is not normal (and is therefore a witch), she secretly seeks advice from the only other witch she knows: Nsuuta, her grandmother’s enemy in the village. Nsuuta gives wise advice but Kirabo is constantly anxious about her grandmother discovering her visiting Nsuuta.
Alongside the various social pressures she faces, Kirabo wonders about her mother. She has no memory of her – she was very young when Kirabo was born. Kirabo yearns for her and wonders what she is like whilst at the same time wondering what caused her to abandon her. Kirabo has a nagging sense that something is missing. Do we all need a mother?
When it comes to relationships, the women in Kirabo’s community are pulled in all sorts of different directions. As a teenager, even so much as speaking to or making eye contact with a boy can be interpreted as flirting, provoking gossip around the village. In spite of this, it is common knowledge that the girls are supposed to be married by twenty. How, Kirabo thinks, can that suddenly happen if I am currently not even allowed to look at a boy?
Similarly, Kirabo also observes the contrast between how young fathers are treated in contrast to young mothers. If an unmarried woman becomes pregnant, it is her responsibility to bring up the child and she is shamed by the community, whereas there seem to be no consequences – familial or criminal – for the father. But Kirabo struggles to understand how her mother’s abandonment fits into that social structure.
The First Woman packs a lot in. Superstitions mixed with sage advice from a witch; girls’ education against gender norms; traditional marriage expectations contrasting with Kirabo’s absent mother. The book explores different interpretations of what it means to be a feminist in a male-dominated society, and how Kirabo can balance the life choices her village expects of her against her attempts to strike out on her own.
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