Jack Mapanje

Jack Mapanje is a distinguished Malawian poet, linguist, editor and scholar. Formerly head of Department of English at Chancellor College, University of Malawi.

He was co-founder of the Linguistics Association for SADC Universities (LASU) - a forum for sharing and exchanging knowledge and research in linguistics, amongst the staff and students in the ten universities of Africa, south of the Sahara. He was imprisoned for three and a half years by dictator Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, essentially for his poetry, and now lives in the city of York, England, with his family.

Jack has published four books of poetry: Of Chameleons and Gods, (H.E.B, 1981), The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (H.E.B, 1993), Skipping Without Ropes (Bloodaxe Books, 1998) and The Last of the Sweet Bananas: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2004). He has co-edited Oral Poetry from Africa: an anthology (Longmans, 1983), Summer Fires: New Poetry of Modern Africa (H.E.B, 1983), The African Writers’ Handbook (African Book Collective, 1999). He has recently edited Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (H.E.B, 2002). His prison memoir tentatively titled 'The Whispers We Shared' will appear by 2005.

For his academic achievement, contribution to poetry and human rights, Jack is recipient of the 1988 Rotterdam Poetry International Award and the 2002 African Literature Association (USA) Fonlon-Nichols Award. He was poet in residence at The Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage, Grasmere, Cumbria and is now a senior lecturer in English at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Jack teaches on the Memoir Writing and Poetry Masterclass short courses.