Iris Mwanza - Zambia, Human Rights, and Elections

"I think it's a story few people have told before. And it's really about, what does a defender of human rights look like?"

Iris Mwanza is here to talk about her novel, THE LION'S DEN (Canongate Books). Iris's novel is about a human rights lawyer, Grace Zulu, whose client Willbess ‘Bessy’ Mulenga, has been arrested for offences ‘against nature. It launches Grace, and Iris, into the underbelly of the legal system.

Iris is deputy director of the Gender Equality Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she leads strategy and investment for the Women in Leadership portfolio, and she has previously worked as a corporate lawyer in both Zambia and the US.

Rippling Points

01.35 - Recording on the morning of the American election
02.41 - Who are the main characters
05.45 - Public institutions, the global south and colonialism
08.59 - When Iris saw the system for what it was
11.17 - ‘True believers’ who inspired this novel
13.41 - Why Grace is the way she is
16.09 - Grace's clashes write father Sebastian
21.27 - Guilt
26.10 - The tragedy of Bessy’s case
28.01 - Challenges promoting the book in Zambia
30.23 - Writing the court room

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