The Shipikisha Club

₦20,000.00

Sali, a mother of 3, is on trial for the murder of her husband Kasunga, found dead after a heated fight in their bedroom. Watching in the gallery are her mother Peggy, and her daughter Ntashé, as the intimate secrets of Sali’s fractured marriage are laid bare, from birth secrets, to hidden violence and postpartum depression. Through it all, Sali remains silent. Faced with a hungry public, and a society that values women who endure, Sali must decide if there is any value in revealing the truth of that night, a truth known only to her and Kasunga.

Part family melodrama, part courtroom drama, The Shipikisha Club is a poignant intergenerational exploration of patriarchy and motherhood.

Available on: July 21, 2026 at 12:00 am

Mubanga Kalimamukwento is the author of Obligations to the Wounded (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024), Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies (Wayfarer, 2025), unmarked graves Tusculum, 2022), and The Mourning Bird (Jacana, 2019). Her work appears in adda, Overland, Isele, Kweli, Netflix, and elsewhere. She has edited for Shenandoah, the Water Stone Review, Doek!, and Safundi, and mentors at the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. Mubanga founded Ubwali Literary Magazine. She is a PhD student in the department of Gender, Women and Sexualities Studies with a minor in Development Studies and Social Change at the University of Minnesota, where she researches Zambian married women who are long-term survivors of HIV.