Alice Mpofu-Coles

A former Zimbabwean diplomat who came to the UK as a refugee herself in 2002, Mpofu-Coles was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007.

She had lost her brothers, parents, and first husband in a short space of time, and her daughters — Michelle, 26, and Tadiwa, 21 — were still young.

"I started writing into a journal daily about how I feel. I didn't have many people to talk to so I just used to write talking to God," she told BuzzFeed News.

"It is a mini bio about the struggle with breast cancer: the resilience, the support, the doctors, the lows and ups, the reflection [on] my childhood," she said, adding that it also looks at how she coped with the deaths of her husband and family.

The book, called Dear God From Your Poached Egg Breast, also covers her time as a female civil servant and diplomat for Zimbabwe's government, working and studying through cancer treatment and chronic pain, and contains "an infusion of African innuendos to 'Dear God...'" she said.