Jack Mapanje
| Jack Mapanje | |
|---|---|
| Born | 25 March 1944 Kadango Village, Mangochi District, Malawi |
| Residence | United Kingdom |
| Nationality | Malawian |
| Occupation | professor, author |
| Known for | poetry, 1987-91 imprisonment |
| Awards | Rotterdam Poetry International Award (1988) PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award (1990) |
Jack Mapanje (born 25 March 1944) 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.
The child of Nyanja and Yao parents, John Alfred Clement ("Jack") Mapanje was born in Kadango Village, Mangochi District, Malawi. 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.
He subsequently became head of the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Malawi.
During the rule of President Hastings Banda, 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 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 The book received no official ban, but was "withdrawn from circulation".Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release.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. 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". Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and UK playwright Ronald Harwood also campaigned for his release.
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