Cover Reveal for The Shipikisha Club

We’re thrilled to help celebrate the forthcoming launch of Mubanga Kalimamukwento’s novel The Shipikisha Club, out from Dzanc Books in March 2026, by collaborating on the reveal of the cover, designed by Michelle D’Urbano. Mubanga was our editorial fellow in fiction last year—you can read about her selections from our spring 2024 issue and learn more about her and her writing in an interview on our blog.

The beautiful book cover will also feature this jacket copy:

Kabwe, Zambia: Sali, a working mother of three, stands trial for the murder of her husband, Kasunga. The prosecutor claims Sali shot him after a heated fight in their bedroom. There are no witnesses. Sali pleads not guilty.

But her story does not begin with a gun. It begins fourteen years earlier—with her rebellion against the pressure to find a husband, her affair with a wealthy married man called Doc, and her discovery that she’s pregnant on the same day of Doc’s unexpected death.

To avoid the shame of being an unwed mother, Sali accepts Kasunga’s proposal, and finds herself suddenly thrust into the shipikisha club: her society’s expectations that it is a wife’s duty to endure. Over the years, Sali navigates her husband’s infidelities and alcohol-filled nights, their money troubles, and her postpartum depression in silence. Until the day she speaks her mind, and Kasunga puts a gun in her face.

The trial is a national scandal. Many are called to testify—the maid, Kasunga’s mother, and Ntashé, Sali's fifteen-year-old daughter. Even after Sali’s diary is dissected and laid bare for all to see, Sali calls no witnesses to her defense. With Kasunga gone, only Sali will ever know the truth. But is the truth enough?

Told through the rotating perspectives of Sali, Ntashé, and Sali’s mother Peggy, The Shipikisha Club is a riveting story of gender politics in Zambia and the world at large—a must-read for fans of Peace Adzo Medie, Abi Daré, and Tayari P. Jones.

Be on the lookout for The Shipikisha Club in March 2026! Congratulations Mubanga!