CASSAVA REPUBLIC PRESS – serie

In the fictional African state of Zambuena, Katme lives a life of privilege as the wife of a rising political figure. Her days are governed by appearances, loyalty and restraint, until her carefully ordered world begins to fracture.Her closest confidant is Samy, a struggling artist whose work dares to expose the inequalities, repression and violence that underpin the regime. When his new exhibition draws the attention of the authorities, Samy's life is placed in immediate danger. Homosexuality is criminalised, dissent is punished, and silence is expected. As political pressure mounts, Katme is forced to confront the cost of her comfort and the limits of her complicity.The Aquatics is a powerful, unsettling novel about friendship and betrayal, state violence and moral responsibility, written with the intensity and precision of an author deeply attuned to how power operates.

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.