New Books Network

Kabwe, Zambia: Sali, a working mother of three, stands trial for the murder of her husband, Kasunga. The prosecutor claims Sali shot him after a heated fight in their bedroom. There are no witnesses. Sali pleads not guilty.

But her story does not begin with a gun. It begins fourteen years earlier--with her rebellion against the pressure to find a husband, her affair with a wealthy married man called Doc, and her discovery that she's pregnant on the same day of Doc's unexpected death.To avoid the shame of being an unwed mother, Sali accepts Kasunga's proposal, and finds herself suddenly thrust into the shipikisha club: her society's expectations that it is a wife's duty to endure. Over the years, Sali navigates her husband's infidelities and alcohol-filled nights, their money troubles, and her postpartum depression in silence. Until the day she speaks her mind, and Kasunga puts a gun in her face.

The trial is a national scandal. Many are called to testify--the maid, Kasunga's mother, and Ntashé, Sali's fifteen-year-old daughter. Even after Sali's diary is dissected and laid bare for all to see, Sali calls no witnesses to her defense. With Kasunga gone, only Sali will ever know the truth. But is the truth enough?

Told through the rotating perspectives of Sali, Ntashé, and Sali's mother Peggy, The Shipikisha Club (Cassava Republic Press, 2026) is a riveting story of gender politics in Zambia and the world at large--a must-read for fans of Peace Adzo Medie, Abi Daré, and Tayari P. Jones.

Mubanga Kalimamukwento is a Zambian attorney and award-winning editor and writer, known for her novel The Mourning Bird and her collection of short stories titled Obligations to the Wounded. She holds a bachelor's and master's degree in law, as well as a master's in fine arts. She is currently pursuing a PhD in gender, women and sexuality studies at the University of Minnesota.

Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University in African History. She is the Editor-In-Chief of the New Books Network.
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Reinventing Caste: Islam and Hierarchy in Late Colonial India (Stanford UP, 2026) reveals that caste, usually assumed to be a feature of Hindu society, was in fact a trans-religious phenomenon in colonial India, as it is today. Even in an Islamic religious milieu that was supposedly more egalitarian than hierarchical Hinduism, colonial Indian subjects thought and acted in terms of caste. Through a focus on one agrarian Muslim caste known as Arains, Ashish Koul shows how some Indian Muslims transmuted caste and emplaced it within their understanding of Islam. During this time, Arain Muslims were derogatively called mali— gardener—instead of what they wished to be seen as—respectable landholders. Seeking to refute such negative portrayals, a group of elite Arains came together to develop a new Islamic vocabulary for caste.

Using primary sources in English and Urdu, Koul analyzes the intricacies of caste, religion, and politics among Muslims in colonial India. By asserting that being Arain was a way of being a true Muslim, elite Arains were able to intervene in significant debates about Muslim identity, colonial law, and political representation. Reinventing Caste shows that in order to understand why caste persists among South Asians, we must examine how caste consciousness has been entrenched within multiple religious traditions.
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In a world obsessed with expertise and control, the figure of the idiot illuminates deeper truths about society. In this interview, Morteza Hajizadeh interviews Leonhard Emmerling about his book The Idiots: The History of the Homo Nullus (Seagull Books, 2026)

Dostoevsky and Nietzsche wrote about him; Dadaists and punks idolized him; artists like Warhol and Beuys made him their icon. From holy fool to punk rebel, the idiot—a figure that traces its roots back to the Greek idiotes, a person who was alienated from public life—has always challenged society’s norms from the margins. Far from a simple madman, the idiot is a powerful subversive, a person who disregards norms and finds profound insight in a state of unmediated inspiration. Using a cross-disciplinary approach bridging literature, religion, art, and philosophy, this volume traces a rich journey up to the present, where the idiot reemerges in a dramatic twist: a public figure who inverts social norms, confounds the boundary between private and public, and declares a new, paradoxical view of the world.

Leonhard Emmerling has worked as an art historian in different capacities: as curator and director of art institutions in Germany and New Zealand; as teacher at art academies in Auckland, Düsseldorf, and Munich; and as advisor and director for the Goethe-Institut. His most recent publication is Aesthetics: What For?.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.

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"Tethered to the cross" is how the renowned nineteenth-century English Baptist minister Charles H. Spurgeon (1834–1892) described the task of ministry and his approach to preaching. For nearly four decades, Spurgeon served as the pastor of the church at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. But what specifically guided the reading of Scripture by the man known as the "Prince of Preachers"? Tracing the development of Spurgeon's thought and his approach to biblical hermeneutics throughout his ministry in Tethered to the Cross: The Life and Preaching of Charles H. Spurgeon (IVP Academic, 2020), theologian and historian Thomas Breimaier argues that Spurgeon viewed the entire Bible through the lens of the cross of Christ. This method led Spurgeon to interpret texts in a consistent fashion, resulting in sermons, articles, and instruction that employed cross-centered language, which was aimed at the conversion of unbelievers. With Breimaier as our guide, better understanding of how Spurgeon approached the task of interpreting Scripture and preaching the gospel might enable us, too, to be tethered to the cross of Christ.Author

Thomas Breimaier (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is the Director for Learning and Training at Hope City Church in Edinburgh, Scotland.Host

Michael Shaw is a PhD student in Historical Theology at Union College, Belfast, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Irish Baptist College. His research focuses on the thought of the Independent Puritan theologian Jeremiah Burroughs (1599–1646). His primary academic interests lie in historical theology, particularly early modern Baptist and Congregationalist theology and ecclesiology. He also serves as the Associate Pastor at Strandtown Baptist Church, Belfast.
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When Saul Keng Hsiu and his wife, Mei Lee, move from China to the United States to take possession of a 160-acre homestead bequeathed to them by a distant relative, all they have are the possessions on their back, some hidden gold, and a pocketful of chrysanthemum seeds. After a rocky start and a long, harsh winter, the couple find themselves successfully raising chrysanthemums and livestock, and soon after, a daughter, Mara.

But when representatives from the US Army Corps of Engineers buy an acre of the Hsiu’s farmland and begin building a missile silo, the inexplicable starts to occur: Mara can commune with the animals on the farm, Mei develops a hidden talent for augury, and the chrysanthemums become impervious to everything. When the Hsius learn that the project on their farm is an effort to make America’s nuclear deterrent invulnerable, they see firsthand the long arm of power and empire.In the years and generations that follow, increasingly impacted by the silo and its residue, the Hsius experience strange, wondrous, and tragic events on their farm. An ambitious epic and an ode to the beauty and glory of our connection to the natural world, Babylon, South Dakota upends the idea of “strangers in a strange land” to become a classic American story. It is a daring novel about how choices reverberate across generations and asks us what we owe to one another.

Tom Lin was born in China and immigrated to the United States when he was four. A graduate of Pomona College, he also holds a PhD from the University of California, Davis. His first novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. He teaches English and creative writing at the University of Iowa.
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