Jack Mapanje Biography
Jack Mapanje was born on March 25, 1944 in Mangochi, Malawi geboren. He studied Englisch and Education in Malawi and England and in 1983 received his PhD in Lingusitics from the University College London. In 1975, he joined the Department of English at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, where he later was appointed Head of the Department of English.
His first collection of poems, Of Chameleons and Gods, was published in the U. K. in 1981 and where soon withdrawn from bookshops, libraries and all instutitions of learning in Malawi. Mapanje was imprisoned without trial or charge by the Malawian government in 1987, and although many writers, linguists and human rights activists campaigned for his release, he was not freed until 1991. Mapanje went into exile in Great Britain.
When this frothful carnival finally closes, brother
When your drumming veins dry, these very officers
Will burn the scripts of the praises we sang to you
And shatter the calabashes you drank from. Your
...
No, I never thought I'd
return to them so early
but beasts of Nalunga
have a mind of their own
...
Beasts of Nalunga seize
their time when the land
is dry and cave panthers
rip out the frogs that might
...
When their moment comes
beasts of Nalunga respect
no-one, the young, the aged,
the poor must all churn in
...
Ask whoever cares to know
ask whoever wants to remember
ask Chilobwe, Mchesi, other
township or country chiefs,
...
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