Jack Mapanje

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Jack Mapanje
Born (1944-03-25) 25 March 1944 (age 80)
Kadango Village,
PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award
(1990)

Jack Mapanje (born 25 March 1944)[1] is a Malawian writer and poet. He was the head of English at the Chancellor College, the main campus of the University of Malawi before being imprisoned in 1987 for his collection Of Chameleons and Gods, which indirectly criticized the administration of President Hastings Banda. He was released in 1991 and emigrated to the UK, where he worked as a teacher.

Background

The child of

University College, London in the early 1980s.[2]

He subsequently became head of the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Malawi.[3]

Imprisonment

During the rule of President

PEN's president, US novelist Larry McMurtry, stated that "the point [of the award] is to generate enough heat so Mapanje gets out of jail".[3] Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and UK playwright Ronald Harwood also campaigned for his release.[9]

Mapanje was held for three-and-a-half years before being released in 1991.[5] After his release, he was told he needed to reapply for his previous professorship at the University of Malawi. After a lengthy delay in his application, he instead emigrated to the UK.[5] He wrote a memoir about the experience, And Crocodiles Are Hungry At Night,[7] which was also adapted into a play.[9]

Exile

After arriving in the UK, Mapanje was awarded a fellowship at

Leeds University. He also taught creative writing in prisons.[4]

In 1994, he returned to Malawi with

BBC2 to make a documentary.[4]

Chameleon politics

He is credited for applying the term "chameleon politics" to describe a political environment where politicians switch parties and forge alliances without transparency or notice in rapidly changing political environments where party switching, floor crossing, and coalition formations are rampant.[10][11] The notion is described in his 1981 book, Of Chameleons and Gods.[12]

Works

Awards

  • 1988 Rotterdam Poetry International Award
  • 1990
    PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award
  • 2002 African Literature Association (USA) Fonlon-Nichols Award

References

  1. ^ a b "Mapanje, Jack", ProQuest Learning: Literature.
  2. ^ "2002: Jack Mapanje". Fonlon-Nicholas Award. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  3. ^ a b Susan Heller Anderson (30 March 1990). "Chronicle". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  4. ^ a b c Adrian Turpin (7 November 1995). "'I had never come to a Western country before. It is good for my writing'". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  5. ^ a b c d "Poetic injustice". The Economist. 9 October 1997. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  6. ISBN 0-435-91194-5
    .
  7. ^ a b "And Crocodiles Are Hungry At Night - a memoir by Jack Mapanje". Amnesty International. 2011. Archived from the original on 3 December 2011. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  8. ^ Vail, Leroy; Landeg White (1991). Power and the Praise Poem: Southern African Voices in History. University of Virginia Press. pp. 278–285.
  9. ^ a b Mark Cook, Lyn Gardner & Judith Mackrell (27 July 2012). "This week's new theatre & dance". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  10. ^ Christopher J. Lee, "A Democracy of Chameleons: Politics and Culture in the New Malawi" (review), African Studies Review 48:1.
  11. ^ Elaine Windrich, "Malawi: The Old and the New" (review of Harri Englund, ed. Democracy of Chameleons: Politics and Culture in the New Malawi), H-Net Reviews, June 2003.
  12. ^ Englund, Harry, 1995, A Democracy of Chameleons: Politics and Culture in the New Malawi.

Relevant literature

  • 'Dunmade, 'Femi. 2019. A Phenomenology of Selected Postproverbial Poetry of Jack Mapanje. Matatu 51:417-431.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Jack Mapanje.

Miscellaneous

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