The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison

by Jack Mapanje

Formerly Head of the English Department, University of Malawi, Jack Mapanje was brutally arrested and imprisoned without trial for four years. Following his release in 1991, he moved to Britain with his wife and family. He has recently been appointed Northern Arts Writer-in Residence and now spends much of his time visiting prisons and lecturing on his experiences in Malawi.

Dedicated to "the black and white writers and human rights sages throughout the world who prayed and fought for my freedom," this new volume of poetry damns the Malawian regime that incarcerated Mapanje. The collection reveals Mapanje's initial reaction to the banning of his last volume in Malawi and his subsequent imprisonment in Mikuyu Prison, and includes poems written since his release and exile from his native land.

Genres: Poetry, Africa, Malawi, African Literature, 20th Century

100 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 1993

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

[Jason Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you think the American incarceration rate is high, you're right (the world's highest by country), but it's nothing next to that of African poets. I once had the pleasure and the privilege of attending the Poetry Africa Festival in Durban, South Africa, where well over half of the male African poets had been imprisoned for their work at one time or another, some for years on end.

One of these was Jack Mapanje, a Malawian poet and theoretical linguist, whose first collection of poems was banned in Malawi and landed him in Mikuyu Maximum Detention Centre for more than three-and-a-half years. No charges were brought against him.

The Chattering Wagtails... collects poems written during and about this time. With uncommon strength and bravery, they detail the appalling dehumanization and small triumphs that comprised the daily life of political prisoners at Mikuyu.

Mapanje was an ebullient joy to meet and talk with after his reading, and my signed copy of "The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison" is one of the treasures of my poetry collection.

(Quoted from #SmallBooksMonth )

[Rambling Raconteur · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://youtu.be/nCWyLZ2MhsM

[Diptarup Ghosh Dastidar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very real account of the oppression, as to be found in writers like Hama Tuma, but with the beauty of gruesome lyrics.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Some of the best poetry I think I've ever read.

Harrowing and beautiful.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had a couple of volumes of poetry published myself, yet I can't honestly say that, if imprisoned by my government for entirely spurious reasons, I'd have the willpower to write more. Yet that's what Mapanje has done, and the anger and resentment that resonates through this collection is palpable. There's one terribly affecting poem here about finally being released just two months after his mother's death, after she waited years for him to be set free. Another, too, about one of his own banned books, and the injustice of censorship, is equally compelling. Furthermore, one of the included poems here is titled "Where Dissent Is Meat for Crocodiles" and that is in itself, I think, a warning of the necessity of freedom of speech, and how badly a government becomes corrupted when trying to undermine it.

I know, it must be said, vanishingly little about the history of Malawi, and so I'm sure that much of this went over my head. However, the experiences of a persecuted writer are something I'm always going to sympathise with, and that's entirely beside the empathy one human being should feel for another under the appalling circumstances that Mapanje and his fellow inmates suffered.

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some really beautiful poems ("You Caught Me Slipping Off Your Shoulders Once" was my favorite), but overall many of them were hard to understand because the collection is situated in the context of Malawian politics from the late 1980s-early 1990s when Mapanje was imprisoned. I'm just not familiar enough with the history to be able to understand it all, but this is more my fault than the writer's.

[Yana Huryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first poetry book in the frames of reading the world challenge, it was a bit difficult but once you jump in that ocean, you flow with those tides until you are on shore with lots of emotions in your head.