The 2024 Winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize was awarded to Mubanga Kalimamukwento for her short story collection Obligations to the Wounded. The collection explores womanhood in contemporary Zambia and was selected by Angie Cruz, author of How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, to win the prize.
Of the collection, Cruz stated, ““These thematically linked stories deliver an intricate study of Zambian women living in both Zambia and abroad who are weighing their options of who to love, where to live, where to work. The author, with a poet’s restraint, has written stories that deftly negotiate the challenges and tribulations women face when they feel the pressure and duty to yield to the will of family, community, customs, country, and spiritual beliefs. Obligations to the Wounded graceful, touching and generous collection.”
The twelve-story collection, narrated by different Zambian women, comes out from the University of Pittsburgh Press on October 8, 2024. You can pre-order the book now.
See the cover of Obligations to the Wounded, designed by Alex Wolfe, below along with a brief Q&A with Kalimamukwento about how the cover came to be!
While writing the book, did you have any ideas for what you wanted the cover to look like?
When I wrote the first story of the collection, six years ago, I wasn’t even thinking of a collection, I was just teaching myself how to write short stories by reading and practising creating my own. The idea of a collection was planted a few months later when a friend of mine read what is now the last story in the book, but even then, it seemed a little far-fetched, the concept of writing so many stories that I could fill a whole book. I only started thinking seriously about a cover when I compiled it into a cohesive piece about two years ago, but as I changed titles, the ideas for the cover morphed as well. It was really only after I called it Obligations to the Wounded, a title I initially wanted for one of the stories, but changed my mind, did I start to visualise a cover that felt like it represented the collection as a whole.
Can you explain what the design process was like once you started working with your publishing team?
The design process was the right kind of collaborative for me. With my novel, I didn’t give any input, and the cover was a very pleasant surprise. I was equal parts happy and nervous to be part of the design process this time. The University of Pittsburgh Press team asked me to complete a questionnaire explaining my vision for the book and including some covers that I loved. I wasn’t married to any singular cover, but I wanted it to be bright text and image-wise. They worked on it based on my responses and their reactions to the collection and produced three stunning covers for me to pick from. I had a difficult time choosing because all of them were stunning. Each design contained strong references to the collection, sometimes specific stories, but I was instantly drawn to one of the three. I did love some elements in the other two though, and wanted some of those details in the other two incorporated into my first choice. Based on this feedback, we were able to narrow it down to two, another incredibly difficult choice for me. I shared the images with my best friend to see which she would pick since she had read the collection about as many times as I have and knows it really well. I also wanted to hear what a reader versus me, the writer, would pick, so her choice affirmed mine in that way.
What was it like seeing your finalized cover for the first time?
Once I saw the cover, I realised that in the months I had been waiting, I had floating ideas of what I wanted it to look like, and this is exactly what my mind had been trying to conjure––if I were a visual artist. I never thought I’d love a cover as much as I loved the cover of my novel, but this did it. I was so excited.
How does the cover work to convey what the contents of the story are?
The consistent aspect of all the stories in this collection is that there is always a strong feminine voice who is stepping out of her expected role, carving a path of her own. Visually, this is represented in the narrowness of the path on which the girl is walking. We can’t see her face either, so she can embody any of the voices in the collection or all of them. We don’t know where she is going, like some of the characters, or maybe she doesn’t know either, also like other characters in the collection, and because her face is hidden, her age is somewhat ambiguous. Each time I look at it, I see something new––for example, the arch of the title frames her almost completely, but not quite, she is mid-stride, which is similar to how a lot of the protagonists in the collection have one foot in one place and the other elsewhere. The kaleidoscope of voices are so well represented in the fabric of her dress as well as the purple inswa across the page.