Jack Mapanje

The child of Nyanja and Yao parents, John Alfred Clement ("Jack") Mapanje was born in Kadango Village, Mangochi District, Malawi.[1] He received his BA in education from the University of London and worked for a time as a lecturer in Malawi before returning to the UK to study linguistics at 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]

During the rule of President Hastings Banda, Mapanje was jailed without charge in 1987, apparently for publishing his poem collection Of Chameleons and Gods.[4][5] The collection obliquely criticized Banda's government, and the "chameleon" of the title refers to the disguise of personal voice Mapanje deemed necessary in order to mount a criticism of the politics at the time.[6] The book received no official ban, but was "withdrawn from circulation".[5] Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release.[7] Its protests included a reading of selections from Of Chameleons and Gods outside the Malawian High Commission in London by UK Nobel laureate Harold Pinter.[8] Mapanje was also awarded the 1990 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award during his imprisonment, which carried a US$3,000 cash award. 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]

After arriving in the UK, Mapanje was awarded a fellowship at The University of York. He later became a visiting professor at Leeds University. He also taught creative writing in prisons.[4]

In 1994, he returned to Malawi with BBC2 to make a documentary.[4]

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]

• Of Chameleons and Gods, 1981
• On the Interpretation of Aspect and Tense in Chiyao, Chicheŵa, and English. University College London Ph.D. thesis, 1983
• The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison, 1993
• The Last of the Sweet Bananas: New and Selected Poems, 2004
• The Beasts of Nalunga, 2007
• And Crocodiles are Hungry at Night – a memoir. Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2011

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

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

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Jack Mapanje

• Official website
• 'Orality and the Memory of Justice' by Jack Mapanje, given in 1995 as the first annual African Studies Lecture at the University of Leeds.
• Jack Mapanje on Desert Island Discs, BBC, October 2004
• "John Alfred Clement Mapanje: On the Interpretation of Aspect and Tense in Chiyao, Chichewa, and English". University College London PhD Thesis (1983).

• Links to audio recording Angus Calder reading his work, Scrubbing the Furious Walls of Mikuyu with music by Dmytro Morykit