Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a fiction writer of The First Woman 2020, (A Girl is a Body of Water for US/Canada) which won the Jhalak Prize 2021, was shortlisted for The Diverse Book Award 2021, the Encore Prize 2021, the James Tait Black Prize 2021 and longlisted for The Aspen Words Literary Prize 2021. 

Her first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani? Manuscript Project 2013, the Prix Transfuge Du Meilluer Premier Roman Francais (2019) shortlisted for Edward Stanford Awards (2019) Longlisted for The Prix Du Medicis (2019). 

Her collection of short stories, Manchester Happened, (Let’s Tell This Story Properly for US/Canada) was shortlisted for The Big Book prize: Harper’s Bazaar 2019 and longlisted for Edge Hill Prize. 

To work on her current project, Makumbi has been Writer-in-Residence at NIAS-KNAW in 2021, Artist-in-Berlin DAAD in 2022, Artist in Residence at STIAS Stellenbosch 2023 and now a Franke Fellow (Yale University) 2024-2025. 

She is a recipient of the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize 2018, won the Global Commonwealth Short story prize 2014 and has a PhD from Lancaster University. She has taught in several universities in Britain.