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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