advance praise for The Shipikisha Club

“Affecting without being sentimental. Mubanga Kalimamukwento knows how to tell a story!” – Chika Unigwe, author of The Middle Daughter

“The Shipikisha Club is electric. From the very first page, I was pulled into the worlds of Ntashé and her mother, Sali. This is a book where the passages, full of beautifully spare, sharp words, serve the story of relationships put to severe tests.” – Farah Ali, author of The River, The Town.

“Kalimamukwento creates an unflinching account of the myriad forms of intimate violence and betrayal within a patriarchal system, interspersed with moments of startling tenderness. She rejects moral certitude, instead pulling us into the minds of messy, complex women attempting to survive and connect in an unjust world.” – Sarah Yahm, author of Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation.

Excerpt of The Shipikisha Club

Ntashé – 2019

Beshiba ekowafuma tabeshiba eko uleya.

We can only know where we are coming from, not where we are going.

Bemba proverb

NTASHÉ IS A CHILD TURNED ABOMINATION. 

She should not be here. She should not be perched by the open window. Should not be watching wild orchids shoot out of the fringes of the lush court lawn. Should not be taking in the row of gleaming Government of the Republic of Zambia–branded vehicles, or the lightless court cell manned by a small guard and her battered rifle. 

Ntashé’s eyes should be glazing over the molecular mass, the rate of diffusion, proportionality to temperature, groaning at how time slows as soon as she enters the chemistry lab. In three hours, the school bell will ding. She should gather her things, walk the fifteen minutes back to her grandparents’ home, microwave last night’s leftover rice and chicken stew, and wait for her grandma to return from court with news.

Instead, this morning, Ntashé stole 100 kwacha from the offering basket while her grandfather prayed for it to multiply. After their usual goodbyes, terse and harried, instead of walking to school, she caught a minibus to Intercity, where she boarded another to Kabwe, the city she’d called home since birth. 

As the quiet town rose from the hill, the vellus hairs on her arms began to dance, the window suddenly taking the shape of a door. If she jumped, she wondered, would the blades of grass hold her like a nest, or would she be pancaked beneath the cars? 

Ahead, the Great North Road started to narrow, the small town like a bud unfolding—first with the quiet dotting of houses after the army barracks, then the signage pointing out the market, and then the hospital, where the speeding traffic wound into a sluggish queue. Soon, the bus would arrive. There was no time for her what-ifs. 

Ntashé traded her school uniform for a well-thought-out disguise. She rolled her eyes at the gawking passengers. It’s not like I’m getting naked, please, just dressing for the occasion. But they were all adults, and she, visibly a schoolgirl, knew how big people liked to feel powerful. So, Ntashé focused on her mission to successfully cosplay Woman and shed the title of Girl, which would grant her quiet entry into the courtroom. She half stood to wrap one of her mother’s chitenges around her waist; she stripped off the Kamwala High School jersey and stuffed it into her backpack; she peeled off the knee-length white socks and pretended her heart wasn’t racing, that tears weren’t on the verge of falling, and this was just another Monday in Kabwe. 

Other than Vanessa, the one friend she’s made at the new school, and Ms. Pichi, the state prosecutor who talked her into coming on the promise of a transport refund and a little extra, plus Ntashé’s all-important role in the execution of justice, not a soul knows she’s here. 

Once seated, crammed between bodies, the terror of her secret presence loses its grip, and her palpitations finally slow. 

But when Ntashé spots her grandma in the front row, air latches like the wrong key in her throat. She hiccups, catching a few irritated glances from the other people in the courtroom. This is just a movie to them, she thinks. Under her breath, she kisses her teeth. Years of doing it behind her mother’s back have made an expert of her, so Ntashé is sure no one hears it for the stealthy insult it is. Her grandma’s face isn’t among the staring ones. She exhales. Grandma has no reason to look back, she consoles herself. No reason to expect Ntashé’s face among the faux friends gathered with the curious onlookers. Ntashé leans into the back of the bench, drinking in the room fully for the first time since she squeezed in with the crowd. 

The gallery is packed tighter than her grandpa’s church, voices thrumming like bees. Examining the room’s composition, it’s as if all those who can have abandoned their roadside tables and market stalls. As if they’ve hauled their nursing babies into chitenge wrappers on their backs, called in sick, lied about family commitments—anything, just to witness for themselves how the death predicted by marriage vows came to be inflicted by the vow maker. 

Vultures, Ntashé simmers. They are just here to watch her family fully come undone, she knows, and hates that they have no decency to hide their excitement, even though, in their shoes, she would do the same. If she could, she’d spit in every single one of their faces. But her family has reached its scandal quota—one a year is enough for their neighborhood gossip stew. For now, all she can do is glare. So, Ntashé remains the quietly hunched body in the middle pew. 

To avoid their faces, she returns her attention to the cell—its crisscrossing of thick rusted metal, and the sounds emerging from the other side of the darkness, permeating Ntashé as if someone is pouring them into her ear hole, stamping them onto her brain. First comes the staccato of restless pacing, accompanied by the relentless talk of someone who has been left alone with their thoughts for far too long. “I can do all things” coasts the air, delicate and hushed, slow as the hairy little mopane worms inching along the skirting board. The voice climbs one octave. “I can do all things” emerges next with a dab of confidence. Then, finally, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” An adamant shout, like the weeds that make home of the cracks in the cement floor. 

Despite the familiarity of the cadence, Ntashé starts, goosebumps beading across her skin. Ninety days of absence seems a lifetime, as if she hasn’t heard this voice all her life. 

She squints, attempting to create a body out of the shadows. 

The guard jumps to her feet. “Behave yourself, iwé!” she snaps at the cell. 

The voice from the cell obeys instantly, dying mid-incantation. 

The guard has a small heart-shaped face, a constellation of blackheads speckled across her forehead. Ntashé guesses her to be no older than twenty-one, and thinks how, if she ever addressed an adult as iwé, now or even in six years, when she too turns twenty-one, her mother would give her one of those backhanded slaps that stung for hours. She cups her cheek, warding off the phantom pain. 

“They have even called your case,” says the guard. “No need for all that chongo umo. Just endesa, come to the door!” The guard unlatches the rusting lock and pulls the door open. 

From the shadows, a prisoner follows the guard’s instruction to hurry, stepping onto the narrow, sun-drenched veranda. 

Ntashé draws in a sharp breath, willing—no, begging herself to look away, but, like a bystander at an accident scene, her gaze is stubborn, focused on the prisoner’s wonky afro, mostly pepper with the occasional sprinkling of salt; on the sunburnt face; the blackened knuckles; the ashen pinky toes poking through canvas shoes; on the way they cease at the large Mukwa door of the courthouse as if suddenly turning to steel, on the flowering devil’s ivy sitting in terracotta ceramic pots by the door, on the gorgeous tapestry of leaves, stems, and petiole creeping over the pan brick wall, toward the polymer shingles on the roof. 

Her heart rages so loud she’s sure the man next to her can hear it. It’s been ninety days of slouching into herself, of waiting. 

And now?— The prisoner turns just so and locks eyes with Ntashé. The moment stills, stretches like elastic, but then, “N’géna, iwe,” shouts the guard, rupturing it. The prisoner nods in compliance, but before crossing the threshold of the imposing courtroom door, the prisoner gives Ntashé a worn smile and mouths Hi baby. 

*

Copyright © 2026 by Mubanga Kalimamukwento.

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