The Shipikisha Club, by Mubanga Kalimamukwento

In Zambia they say that marriage is shipikisha: endurance. You stay, and you bear it.

Set in Lusaka across the first two decades of this century, Mubanga Kalimamukwento's novel follows three generations of women in one family. Peggy is a preacher's wife who has made her peace with the rules. Her daughter Sali, a schoolteacher, falls pregnant by a married doctor she is sure will leave his wife for her, and instead finds herself married to Kasunga, a stiff, proper policeman who agrees to raise the child as his own. That child, Ntashé, grows up wanting to be an actress and wanting a different life from the women before her. As the marriage sours over the years, the family ends up in a courtroom, where each woman has her own version of the truth.

It is a sharp, often funny and deeply felt novel about marriage, motherhood and what women are expected to endure, from the author of The Mourning Bird.

Author: Mubanga Kalimamukwento
Publisher: Jacana Media