The Polygamist's author says women see themselves reflected in her Netflix hit - BBC News

Zimbabwean novelist Sue Nyathi self-funded her debut novel and now asks who can afford to write at all.

Image caption, Sue Nyathi says people call her an overnight success but "the work has been put in over many years"

When Sue Nyathi sent her debut novel The Polygamist to publishers, "they thought there was no market for the book" about a married Zimbabwean man and the women he seduces, she says.

So the Zimbabwean author found her own editor, typesetter and artist, and in 2012 published 500 copies herself. It defied the publishers' predictions and became a huge hit.

It has now been adapted for Netflix and is in the top 10 of the platform's most streamed series in more than 60 countries, reaching number two in the United States. Hollywood actress Taraji P Henson said the series had her in a "chokehold" and she binge-watched all 22 episodes in a single day.

It is not, Nyathi is careful to point out, a straightforward story about polygamy. The traditional practice of polygamy is not foreign to her. Her mother's side the family was polygamous for generations.