Dr Jack Mapanje
Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing
- Telephone: +44 (0) 191 222 7366
- Fax: +44 (0) 191 222 8708
Background
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.
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.
Roles and Responsibilities
Jack teaches on the Memoir Writing and Poetry Masterclass short courses.
Honours and Awards
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.
Research Interests
Poetry, African writing, and literatures of incarceration.
- Mapanje J. Altar Boy at Sixty, new collection of poems. Bloodaxe Books, 2013. In Press.
- Mapanje J. London Issues in creative suffering - an approach to the critical reading of literatures of incarceration. 2013. In Press.
- Mapanje J. And crocodiles are hungry at night: A memoir. Banbury: Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2011.
- Mapanje J, ed. An African Thunderstorm & other poems. Nairobi, Kenya: East African Educational Publishers, 2004.
- Mapanje J. The Last of the Sweet Bananas: New and Selected Poems. Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2004.
- Mapanje J, ed. Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing. Oxford: Heineman, 2002.