Jack Mapanje on BBC Radio 4 & World Service
Jack Mapanje is a poet, linguist, editor and human rights activist. He received the 1988 Rotterdam Poetry International Award for his first book of poems, Of Chameleons and Gods (1981) and the USA’s Fonlon-Nichols Award for his contribution to poetry and human rights. He was head of the Department of English at the University of Malawi where the Malawi authorities arrested him in 1987 after his first book of poems had been banned, and he was released in 1991 after spending three years, seven months and sixteen days in prison, following an international outcry against his incarceration.
He has since published five poetry books, The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (1993) from Heinemann, and Skipping Without Ropes (1998), The Last of the Sweet Bananas: New & Selected Poems (2004), Beasts of Nalunga (2007) and Greetings from Grandpa (2016) from Bloodaxe, as well as his prison memoir And Crocodiles Are Hungry at Night (Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2011); he co-edited three anthologies, Oral Poetry from Africa (1983), Summer Fires: New Poetry of Africa (1983) and The African Writers’ Handbook (1999); and edited the acclaimed Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (2002). Beasts of Nalunga was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2007.
Mapanje has held residences in the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and throughout Britain, including two years with the Wordsworth Trust at Dove Cottage in Cumbria, and was a visiting professor in the faculty of art at York St John University until his retirement. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Stirling in 1996 and by the University of Bedfordshire in 2015. In 2026 he received a Cholmondeley Award, a prize which recognises the achievement and distinction of individual poets. He has lived in exile in York with his family since 1991.
JACK MAPANJE INTERVIEW CHOSEN FOR PICK OF THE WEEK ON RADIO 4
Pick of the Week, BBC Radio 4, Sunday 17 May 2026, 6.15pm
Jack Mapanje's interview on BBC Radio 4's Soul Music: I Can See Clearly Now was chosen by Viji Alles for his edition of Pick of the Week on 17 May 2026. Details of the original broadcast are below.
1st item.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002wjjz
JACK MAPANJE ON BBC RADIO 4 - A PICK OF THE WEEK CHOICE
Soul Music: I Can See Clearly Now, BBC Radio 4, Saturday 20 April 2024, 10.30am (repeated Monday 22 April 2024, 4.30pm), rebroadcast Friday 15 May 2026, 11.30pm
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.
The episode was rebroadcast on 15 May 2026, after which Jack Mapanje's interview was chosen by Viji Alles for BBC Radio 4's Pick of the Week of 17 May 2026. Link below.
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]
