She attended Trinity College Nabbingo for O-levels and to King's College Budo for A-levels. She lived with her family first at Nakasero, then later at Kololo. Makumbi was brought up by her aunt, Catherine Makumbi-Kulubya. While he was saved from being killed, he suffered from mental health issues for the rest of his life. During Idi Amin's regime, her father, a banker, was arrested and brutalised. Her parents separated when she was two years old and for two years she lived with her grandfather Elieza Makumbi. She is the eldest child of Anthony Kizito Makumbi and the third of Evelyn Nnakalembe. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda.

She lives in Manchester with her husband, Damian, and son, Jordan. In 2021, her novel The First Woman won the Jhalak Prize. In 2018, she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize in the fiction category. She is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. She was longlisted for the 2014 Etisalat Prize for Literature.

She was the Overall Winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story ' Let's Tell This Story Properly', and emerged Regional Winner, Africa region. Her short story collection, Manchester Happened, was published in 2019. It was published by Kwani Trust in 2014 under the title Kintu. Her doctoral novel, The Kintu Saga, was shortlisted and won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013. Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (born 1960s) is a Ugandan- British novelist and short story writer.

Kintu jennifer makumbi