Jack Mapanje

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2004

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the poet Dr Jack Mapanje who is one of the most important living African poets. He was born into a poor household in a typical African village in 1944, when Malawi (then Nyasaland) was a British colony, but while he was still a child it became part of the Central African Federation, together with Northern and Southern Rhodesia.

Jack started writing poems, inspired by his despair at the political woes besetting his country. Although his book, Of Chameleons and Gods, was only sold in one book shop in Malawi, it won considerable acclaim around the world and was awarded the Rotterdam International Poetry Prize. He was ambitious and set up a writers group within his own University and, although he knew it was dangerous, felt compelled to continue with his writing. He was arrested in 1987 while drinking in a bar. The World Service broadcast a news item about Mapanje's arrest the following day and his cause was taken up by writers' groups and activists across the world. Dr Mapanje was held without charge or trial in Mikuyu Prison for more than three years, scarcely aware of the international campaign to free him. When he was finally released, again it was without warning or explanation. Believing his life was still in danger, he fled with his wife and children to Britain. He has lived here ever since and now lectures at the University of Newcastle.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Ave Maria by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Luxury: A guitar

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2004, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My cosway this week is a poet, he's been described as the most important
0:24.0	African poet. He's been described as the most important
0:33.8	African poet writing in English today, but his journey to such a distinguished
0:38.6	position has been a hard one. Brought up by his mother in the British colony of Nyassaland, his childhood was poor,
0:45.0	but he was clever enough to win a decent education and went to university in the new Malawi
0:50.0	and later in England.
0:52.0	At the age of 39, he returned home and became head of English in his country's university,
0:57.0	but a few years later he was arrested by Malawi's dictator Hastings Bander and thrown into prison. No reasons given, no charges brought, no trial.
1:06.3	God, laughter and composing poetry kept him sane in jail. He was, as he's put it, one of the desperate voices of fractured souls.
1:15.0	Pressure from international literary figures including Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard
1:20.0	eventually secured his
1:25.0	and today, age 60, he lives here and he teaches at Newcastle University.
1:27.0	The legacy of his incarceration remains with him.
1:30.0	Dictators create artists, says people who protest he is Jack Mapanji how long in fact were you in prison Jack
1:39.7	Three years seven months 16 days and more than 12 hours.
1:44.0	And this was late 80s and into the 90s, not that long ago.
1:48.0	And you didn't know why you were there?
1:50.0	I was not told why I was there.
1:52.0	I was able to speculate but it was just pure speculation.
1:56.7	And you didn't know if you'd ever be let out?
	...

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