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Hello, we're going to experience some extremes together today from a literary tour of the Netherlands, largest of the low countries,

to the alpine heights of Switzerland and the mountains of Virginia.

But before we go either up or down, we're going to go

back, back to the 1970s in Uganda. Jennifer Nansubuga-McCumbi won the Commonwealth Short

Story Prize in 2014. In 2018, her first novel, Chintu, was published to acclaim in the UK,

and now comes her follow-up, the first woman.

The book describes the transition of Chirabo from child to woman, given up by her mother,

who was only a teenager when she had her. Chirabo grows up in rural Uganda, immersed in the folklore

and traditions of her culture. But as she grows older, moving briefly to Kampala and then to a

girl's boarding school, she grapples with the complexities of Ugandan society and the seemingly

immovable obstacles it puts in the path of women. When I spoke to Jennifer, down the line from

Manchester where she now lives, I asked her why she picked such a tumultuous period in which to start Chirabot's story.

The 1970s have not been recorded in my country from a literary point of view.

The 70s were taken over by Idi Amin, so that is most of what we have written about it.

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