The Shipikisha Club

A woman on trial. A marriage built on silence. A culture that demands endurance. Sali, a working mother of three, is on trial for the murder of her husband, Kasunga. Accused of shooting him after a fight in their bedroom, she pleads not guilty and must rely on an overworked legal aid lawyer as a courtroom hungry for judgement looks on. Fourteen years earlier, Sali’s life was shaped by a different kind of violence. The pressure to conform, to endure, to shipikisha. When an affair with a wealthy, married man ends in sudden death, she enters a loveless marriage to escape the shame of unwed motherhood. What follows is a life marked by infidelity, financial strain, postnatal depression and quiet suffering, until endurance finally gives way. Told through a braided narrative moving between past and present, The Shipikisha Club is a powerful literary novel about marriage, motherhood and the devastating cost of silence in contemporary Zambia.