Born: 9 October 1938, Zambia
Died: 14 March 2009
Country most active: Zambia
Also known as: NA
Zambian diplomat Gwendoline Konie served as the Zambian ambassador to Scandinavia, the United Nations and Germany. She also formed her own political party, the Social Democratic Party (SDF), in 2000 to fight poverty and gender inequality, and ran for president in 2001, though unsuccessfully. When she died, she received a state funeral.
Born in what was then called Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Konie attended Cardiff University in Wales and American University in Washington, D.C. before pursuing her doctorate in sociology from the University of Warwick in England.
In 1962, two years before Zambia achieved independence, she was appointed to the federal Legislative Council. She went on to serve as ambassador to Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland from 1974 to 1977, becoming the country’s UN representative in 1977. She then worked as the Permanent Secretary of Zambia’s Tourism Ministry starting in 1979.
Konie also wrote poetry, and her “In the Fist of your Hatred” was included in The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry in 2007.