In this sixth edition of A Short Talk, 2025 Rajat Neogy Editorial Fellow Sihle Ntuli chats to award winning Zambian writer and Ubwali Editor-In-Chief Mubanga Kalimamukwento. A variety of topics were discussed including the recently released ‘Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies’, which itself has sparked a lot of interest and discussion within literary and academic spaces both on the continent and globally. Other themes discussed include the black lived experience, womanhood and motherhood. This powerful dialogue then moves on towards the realms of building kinship among fellow writers, alongside this, the invaluable impact literary journals have had on the inspiring journey of this critically acclaimed author.

A LONG HOUSE

Your writing career has been such a thrill to follow. From your novel ‘The Mourning Bird’ to your most recent hybrid release ‘Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies’. What sets this particular book apart from your works that have come before it?

MUBANGA KALIMAMUKWENTO

Sihle, thank you for following my work and the grace you have extended to me. I have so much respect for yours, so I am grateful for the community. 

The first, most obvious difference between Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies and my previous work is the genre distinction; preceding it were a novel, a chapbook of poems, and a collection of stories. Beyond that, this one is closest to me because I was not filtering memory through imagination. Because of that, it feels very vulnerable. The usual, consuming excitement of publication day was accompanied by a thrum of anxiety that I am not sure I have shed yet. Still, like all my work, I am proud of it – proud that I did the hard work of facing it, writing it down, and then sharing it. It is dedicated to my little sister, with whom so many of those memories are shared. She would have penned it much more eloquently than I, but in lieu, this will have to do.

A LONG HOUSE

I found a lot of depth and layering in this work insofar as highlighting nuanced aspects of life in Zambia, such as the intersectionality of the black lived experience, particularly on motherhood and womanhood. Is the way you’ve compartmentalized the book a reflection of this, or is there a lot more to it?

Thank you. I have been thinking recently about how once a story, poem, essay (whatever container holds it) exists in the world, the storyteller no longer holds the pen. The readers bring so much of themselves to the page that when they finish, they leave with a completely different experience from the writer, and even every other reader. I love that. Which is to say that, no, I wasn’t wearing an intersectional lens in the writing of the collection, I think that happens more subconsciously, because of my life experiences and the colour they bring into how I see and write Zambia and Zambian girlhood. The titular essay, spread across the book, took me the longest to write and then to share, because I felt laid bare in a way I didn’t in my other work. The titular proverb, as well as my experience of maternal loss, and the perpetual cavity left by this premature orphanhood,  guided the arrangement more than anything. In my mind, there was a time before my mother, and then, there is now.

A LONG HOUSE

Tell us a bit about your experience as an African writer and academic living in America. How has it felt to navigate being Zambian in this space and how has it been different in comparison to your time on the continent?

MUBANGA KALIMAMUKWENTO

Hmm, a hard one for me because I am still living it. I am not the kind of writer who frequently writes in the moment. In most of my work, you will see me looking back, reflecting. I like what time teaches me about a moment and honouring feeling something more than I do, documenting it. I trust my memory to retain what it must, even though we are warned of the unreliability of memory. The main difference living here after thirty years in Zambia is how quick-paced everything is. There are moments when it can feel necessary, like when I need to get somewhere quickly and know I can count on the bus, or the route my car takes to deliver me there as expected, without having to call to apologize. Zambia is more languid, and there is also a nostalgia I feel for that–like when my youngest son started kindergarten here and only had four hours of school, having to rush to and from class to get him on and off the bus was dizzying. This swiftness can sometimes feel like the earth is moving beneath me, and it’s hard to secure myself mentally.  So much has happened since I came. It has only been seven years, but all my creative work was published after, even though I wrote and submitted The Mourning Bird while living in Zambia. There is always gratitude for the time my life here gifts me, allowing me to focus on the work I am called to do creatively and academically. I would not have, for instance, pursued an MFA in Zambia, nor would my PhD, if I did it, have been in the department that houses me. But there is hardness here that I never knew before, and more than anything, it’s that the swiftness of life here makes community-making artificial, and I don’t know that I will ever get used to that.  It’s a constant tension that, couched in the present political environment, makes it more thorny a literary and academic space to exist. As a writer, you know that before the writing is the observing, the taking note, before you can figure out the shape of the story you are capturing. I am writing, of course, always writing, but I am not sure yet how it shows up in my work.

A LONG HOUSE

If one is to talk of the quantitative and qualitative ways that writers are described, do you view it as a compliment to be described as prolific?

MUBANGA KALIMAMUKWENTO

The people who would describe me as prolific right now are probably doing math. I am not a mathematician, dividing the number of years that I have been writing by the number of books published.  I write when I have something I want to say, and it gets published when someone wants to hear it. Some things take longer than others to become what they need to be; others find a home quickly.

A LONG HOUSE

As someone who handles day-to-day tasks that come with academia alongside motherhood and other family responsibilities, do you have any thoughts to share on writer wellness, are you someone who practices self-care, if so, how?

MUBANGA KALIMAMUKWENTO

I am hesitant to share advice because I don’t know that my life is as compartmentalized as people perceive it to be. There are a lot of balls in the air, yes, but there are a lot of hands helping in different ways, I don’t do it ALL,  and even when it seems I am, I don’t do it alone. This title, academic, feels newest among them. I started my PhD study in September of 2024, and was very fortunate to have a fellowship. That allowed me to adjust to the demands of my discipline without having to teach any classes, like most graduate students in the US have to. So, my fellowship and incredible advisor are holding up the “academia” ball with me.

For me, motherhood is a constant learning process, and sometimes the curves can be steep. There are ways that them getting older has made it slightly easier, because they are a little more independent, which eases the burden of some of that unseen labour of motherhood. But more than that, my husband is an incredible father and partner, and that makes my mothering so much easier. Often, it’s not just us. Our friends are a godsend too. We couldn’t do it without them.

Caring for Mubanga, not her research, or her art, or her children, looks different every day. Some days, I need a run because something about the monotony of the movement in my legs against the wind and birds tends to open up blocks in my brain or emotions. Other times, it is a three-hour phone call with my best friend. Most times, I am learning, it is honouring what I am feeling, sitting in it, and letting it pass.

A LONG HOUSE

With four published books and a fifth forthcoming in 2026, how often do you encounter writer’s block? What strategies do you use to get over this hurdle?

MUBANGA KALIMAMUKWENTO

There are days I feel like the writing is doing what I want it to do. There are others when the revision feels too laborious, but no blocks, no. I don’t sketch out my shorter work, but I always have a rough plan for my novels. So, if I get to a place where I don’t know what to write, I just go to my plan and use that as a guide. In the first draft, this doesn’t bother me; after all, the job of the first draft is only to exist.

A LONG HOUSE

What part has your time at Doek! and Shenandoah played in your founding of Ubwali Literary magazine? What are you hoping to achieve with the journal?

MUBANGA KALIMAMUKWENTO

Doek! was my editorial debut, inspired by an Instagram interview that Rémy Ngamije and I had. I started out sending him a story for the magazine, but was keen to contribute editorially, too. I fell instantly in love with the premise of Doek! Its presence as the first and only literary magazine in Namibia because I felt a kinship with the writers there, creating in a place where the literary ecosystem can feel so small because that’s what I felt like writing The Mourning Bird, in Kabwe. So I wanted to be part of something that supports authors in that way. What fully drew me in, though, was how he edited my work. After we had done all the crossing of t’s and dotting of i’s, he sent me a draft and asked if the work still felt like mine after all the edits. It did, but more than that, I really appreciated his asking, and how he placed the need for my voice to still be authoritative in the work as paramount. That’s a lesson I take everywhere, including now at Ubwali. I have a fantastic team of editors with me, but when I personally work with an author, I keep that question in mind.

At Shenandoah, I had a bit more experience, including Doek! But also sometime at the Water~Stone Review, my University journal, so it was a different lesson to be learnt. A big one was trusting my instinct when making editorial decisions. With bigger magazines, there are so many submissions and very little space or money, so sometimes the difference between a yes and no is minuscule, but I have to be okay with that. This isn’t something I have frequently had to deal with at Ubwali, but it can be as stressful, for example, when deciding who will be in our Masterclass or who will win the Hope Prize.

A LONG HOUSE

You are such a highly celebrated writer with many prestigious accolades to your name, perhaps beyond this could you share with us one experience that has brought you the most joy on your writing journey thus far, what made this particular experience so memorable for you?

MUBANGA KALIMAMUKWENTO

There are so many quiet joys separate from the accolades, like when I finish something, and I knew right away that it was beautiful. Or when something comes to me complete in its first iteration, like with “Where is Jane?” or when I feel serendipity. My first essay, Pretend was published the week of what would have been my little sister’s 33rd birthday. Most recently, it was seeing my son’s faces when they saw me win a Minnesota Book Award, just how proud they were, how excited, it felt important that they were there to witness it.