The mourning bird / Mubanga Kalimamukwento.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kalimamukwento, Mubanga, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Street children--Zambia--Fiction.

Street children.

Zambia--Fiction.

Zambia.

Zambian fiction (English).

Genre:

Fiction

Fiction.

Physical Description:

193 pages ; 24 cm

Manufacture:

Cape Town : ABC Press, [2019]

Place of Publication:

Auckland Park, South Africa : Jacana, 2019.

Summary:

When eleven-year-old Chimuka and her younger brother Ali find themselves orphaned in the 1990s, it's clear that their seemingly ordinary Zambian family is brimming with secrets: from HIV/AIDS to infidelity to suicide. Faced with the difficult choice of living with their abusive extended family or slithering into the dark underbelly of Lusaka's streets, Chimuka and Ali escape and become street kids. Against the backdrop of a failed military coup, election riots and a declining economy, Chimuka and Ali are raised by drugs, crime and police brutality. As a teenager, Chimuka is caught between prostitution and the remnants of the fragile stability from before her parents' death. The Mourning Bird is not just Chimuka's story, it's a national portrait of Zambia in an era of strife. With lively and unflinching prose, Kalimamukwento paints a country's burden, shame and silence that, when juxtaposed with Chimuka's triumph, forms an empowering debut novel.

Notes:

Winner of the Dinaane Debut Fiction Award.

ISBN:

9781431429028

1431429023

OCLC:

1103708840