Of Chameleons and Gods

by Jack Mapanje

A volume of poetry written by a Malawi prisoner of conscience during his ten-year imprisonment.

Genres: Poetry, Malawi, Africa

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Jack Mapanje (born 25 March 1944)[1] 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.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should probably give up reading poetry. It's wasted on me.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Proof that you don't have to understand everything in a poem to like it. The glossary is a help, though. I loved the spirit of place evoked in these.

[Lara A · Rating 4 out of 5]

We live in a time where people are fond of saying that freedom of speech doesn't mean a freedom from the consequences of speech. Of course those who say such things, never think their speech will bring them any negative consequences. They also never seem to realise that they are actually paraphrasing Idi Amin. While Amin was overseeing a reign of terror in Uganda, Hastings Banda had already notched up a decade of oppression in Malawi. Jack Mapanje was free to write and publish his poetry, but the consequences of this slim volume were a prison sentence.


I always find poetry hard to review, because I feel I know so little about it. This book helpfully has a glossary, but there are almost certainly cultural nuances that would fly over the heads of non-Malawian readers. The poems are mocking, wistful and tragic, sometimes within one stanza. Nor are they solely focused on Malawi as the author makes a trip to London and rails against the Apartheid regime then in power in South Africa. Nature and landscape serve as setting and metaphor, most powerfully in the final poem, where Mapanje laments a world which does not allow "tadpoles to grow into frogs".

[Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Drinking the water from its source" =10/10