Jack Mapanje (born 25 March 1944)"Mapanje, Jack"
ProQuest Learning: Literature. is a

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast ...

an writer and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. He was the head of English at the Chancellor College, the main campus of the

University of Malawi The University of Malawi (UNIMA) is a public university established in 1965 and until 4 May 2021, when the university underwent a delinking, was composed of four constituent colleges located in Zomba, Blantyre, and Lilongwe. Of the four colleges, ...

before being imprisoned in 1987 for his collection '' Of Chameleons and Gods'', which indirectly criticized the administration of President

Hastings Banda Hastings Kamuzu Banda (1898 – 25 November 1997) was the Prime Minister of Malawi, prime minister and later President of Malawi, president of Malawi from 1964 to 1994 (from 1964 to 1966, Malawi was an independent Dominion / Commonwealth realm) ...

. He was released in 1991 and emigrated to the UK, where he worked as a teacher.

Background

The child of

Nyanja Chewa (also known as Nyanja, ) is a Bantu language spoken in much of Southern, Southeast and East Africa, namely the countries of Malawi , where it is an official language, and Mozambique and Zambia. The noun class prefix ''chi-'' is used for l ...

and Yao parents, John Alfred Clement ("Jack") Mapanje was born in Kadango Village,

Mangochi District Dedza district is one of twelve Districts of Malawi, districts in the central region of Malawi. The capital is Mangochi, lilongwe. The district covers an area of 6,273 km.² and has a population of 610,239. The Mangochi District is a hub ...

, Malawi. He received his BA in education from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

and worked for a time as a lecturer in Malawi before returning to the UK to study linguistics at

University College, London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

in the early 1980s. He subsequently became head of the Department of Language and Linguistics at the

Imprisonment

During the rule of President

, Mapanje was jailed without charge in 1987, apparently for publishing his poem collection '' Of Chameleons and Gods''. The collection obliquely criticized Banda's government, and the "chameleon" of the title refers to the disguise of personal

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

Mapanje deemed necessary in order to mount a criticism of the politics at the time. The book received no official ban, but was "withdrawn from circulation".

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

declared him a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release. 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 Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanne ...

. Mapanje was also awarded the 1990

PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award Awards presented by the PEN American Center (today PEN America) that are no longer active. The awards are among many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN in over 145 PEN centres around the world. The PEN American Center awards have been ch ...

during his imprisonment, which carried a US$3,000 cash award.

PEN A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity wh ...

's president, US novelist

Larry McMurtry Larry Jeff McMurtry (June 3, 1936March 25, 2021) was an American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas.

, stated that "the point f the awardis to generate enough heat so Mapanje gets out of jail". Nigerian Nobel laureate

Wole Soyinka Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: ''Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé Ṣóyíinká''; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded t ...

and UK playwright

Ronald Harwood Sir Ronald Harwood ( né Horwitz; 9 November 1934 – 8 September 2020) was a South African-born British author, playwright, and screenwriter, best known for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for ''The Dresser'' (for w ...

also campaigned for his release. Mapanje was held for three-and-a-half years before being released in 1991. 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. He wrote a memoir about the experience, ''And Crocodiles Are Hungry At Night'', which was also adapted into a play.

Exile

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

The University of York , mottoeng = On the threshold of wisdom , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £8.0 million , budget = £403.6 million , chancellor = Heather Melville , vice_chancellor = Charlie Jeffery , students ...

. He later became a visiting professor at

Leeds University , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. He also taught creative writing in prisons. In 1994, he returned to Malawi with

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

to make a documentary.

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. The notion is described in his 1981 book, ''Of Chameleons and Gods''.Englund, Harry, 1995, ''A Democracy of Chameleons: Politics and Culture in the New Malawi''.

Works

* '' 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

Awards

* 1988 Rotterdam Poetry International Award * 1990

* 2002 African Literature Association (USA) Fonlon-Nichols Award

References

Relevant literature

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

External links

*
'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).

Miscellaneous

Links to audio recording

Angus Calder Angus Lindsay Ritchie Calder (5 February 1942 – 5 June 2008) was a Scottish writer, historian, and poet. Initially studying English literature, he became increasingly interested in political history and wrote a landmark study on Britain during t ...

reading his work, Scrubbing the Furious Walls of Mikuyu with music by

Dmytro Morykit Dmytro Morykit (born 3 December 1956) is a British composer and pianist. Early life and education Morykit was born in Northampton to a Ukrainian father and Italian mother who were both displaced from their respective countries after World War ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mapanje, Jack 1944 births Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by Malawi Living people Malawian poets Alumni of the University of London Academics of Newcastle University University of Malawi faculty Malawian exiles Malawian emigrants to the United Kingdom 20th-century male writers 21st-century male writers Chewa-language writers Linguists of Chewa