Zambian writer Mubanga Kalimamukwento recently released a poetry collection titled, Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies, published by Wayfarer Books. It has so far been met with rave reviews and will now have a virtual book launch with Nigerian writer, editor, and podcaster, Lola Opatayo.
The virtual book launch will take place via the Instagram handle of Journey of the Art on June 7, 2025, at 10:00 PT, 12:00 CST, and 19:00 CAT. The event is proudly sponsored by Wayfarer Books, Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop, Journey of the Art, and the Journal of African Youth Literature (JAY Lit).
Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies is a hybrid collection of essays and poems explores the emotional landscape of grief, motherhood, ancestry, and survival through a distinctly African lens. The title draws from the Bemba proverb tapafwa noko, apesa umbi, a reminder of the irreplaceable bond between mother and child. Blending English with Zambian languages and oral traditions, the book carries readers through memory and mourning in lyrical, genre-bending form. It was a finalist for the 2023 Center for African American Poetry and Poetics (CAAPP) Book Prize.
Mubanga Kalimamukwento has won the Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction (2024); the Drue Heinz Literature Prize (2024), selected by Angie Cruz; theTusculum Review Poetry Chapbook Contest (2022), selected by Carmen Giménez; the Dinaane Debut FictionAward (2019) & Kalemba Short Story Prize (2019), among others. Her first novel, The Mourning Bird, was listed among the top 15 debut books of 2019 by Brittle Paper. Beyond her writing, Kalimamukwento is pursuing a PhD in Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota and serves as a mentor at the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.
Lola is a writer and editor whose creative work has appeared in Obsidian, Hot Metal Bridge, The Best Small Fictions 2020, Isele, and Efiko Mag. Her work has been endowed with awards from the Iceland Writers Retreat and MacDowell. She’s a recipient of the inaugural Equity Fellowship from Editors Canada and the 2020 Gerald Freund Fellowship, and her work has been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Lola is the host of Journey of the Art, a podcast about writing, storytelling, and the art behind the book.
Bakare Oluwatobiloba
I write to educate, motivate and define history with literature. Just being me!
