Jack Mapanje on BBC Radio 4 & World Service
JACK MAPANJE INTERVIEWED ON BBC RADIO 4
Soul Music: I Can See Clearly Now, BBC Radio 4, Saturday 20 April 2024, 10.30am (repeated Monday 22 April 2024, 4.30pm)
An interview with poet Jack Mapanje featured in an episode of the BBC Radio 4 series Soul Music in April 2024. He was speaking about how much Johnny Nash’s 1972 hit ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ meant to him when he was in prison in Malawi.
A selection of the poems from the collection for which he was imprisoned without charge, Of Chameleons and Gods (1981), is included in his 2004 Bloodaxe retrospective The Last of the Sweet Bananas. Jack Mapanje was released in 1991 after spending three years, seven months and sixteen days in prison, following an international outcry against his incarceration. He moved to the UK in 1991, and still lives in exile in York with his family.
‘Poet Jack Mapanje was detained in Malawi’s notorious Mikuyu Prison without charge from 1987 until 1991, under Hastings Banda's regime. He remembers singing the song when other political prisoners were released - "it's a song of hope".’
The programme will remain available on BBC Sounds. Jack features from 12:22.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001yggx
The Jimmy Cliff cover version of ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ was one of the eight tracks which Jack Mapanje chose when he was Sue Lawley’s guest on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2004.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00936cs
WORLD RADIO PUBLICITY FOR JACK MAPANJE
Outlook, BBC World Service, Monday 25 July 2016, 12.06 pm (repeated multiple times)
Jack Mapanje was interviewed for Arts Daily, a high-profile career interview slot which feeds into the World Service magazine programme Outlook. Interviewees talk about their own lives and how that relates to their art.
Jack spoke about his time in prison in Malawi, about life in exile in the UK, and about how the birth of his grandchildren has given him hope for the future. He read and talked about the title poem from his new collection Greetings from Grandpa.
‘Jack Mapanje has been described as one of the most important African poets writing in English today. He is best known for the poetry inspired by his three and a half years in prison in Malawi in the late 80s, during the dictatorship of Hastings Banda. He was never charged. And after being released, Jack came to live in the UK, and raised a family. His latest collection of poetry, Greetings from Grandpa, is dedicated to his children and grandchildren for "calming the nerves and fears of exile."’
Click here to listen. The interview with Jack Mapanje starts at 13.55
Jack Mapanje has lived in exile in York since 1991. An excellent feature review of Greetings from Grandpa ran in York's The Press of 11 June 2016.
Click here to read.
[09 May 2024]
