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23 Nov 2006 00:00:00 at Bedford campus, Polhill Avenue
Legendary Malawian poet, Jack Mapanje, who was imprisoned in his home country during the 1980s, will be giving a free public reading of his work.
Mapanje grew up in a newly-independent Malawi under the dictatorship of Hastings Banda. In 1975, Mapanje became a lecturer in English at Chancellor College, which is part of the University of Malawi.
He became an early member of the now famous Malawi Writers’ Group that formed at the college, and published his first collection of poems in London Of Chameleons and Gods, in 1981.
Although it was banned in schools and colleges throughout Malawi and sold in just one bookshop, the book quickly became very well known.
The oblique political criticism of its poems was eventually brought to Banda’s attention and Mapanje was arrested in 1987. He was held at Mikuyu Prison by the Malawian Government, without trial or charge, for more than three-and-a-half years.
