Jack Mapanje

Beasts of Nalunga I

Language: english

Translations: german (Die Ungeheuer von Nalunga I)

Beasts of Nalunga I

No, I never thought I’d
return to them so early
but beasts of Nalunga
have a mind of their own
that draws out the most
tenacious in us within
their temporal spirals,
trying our temper and
tempting our faith. Our
antediluvian sages were
right to consider them
too stubborn; for beasts
of Nalunga have legs that
won’t lift, eyes with mind-
boggling cataracts, ears
which won’t hear, flesh
and bones that won’t feel –
they are the most eloquent
when our gods conspire
with despots to suppress
people’s inventive ways.

Jack Mapanje

* 25.03.1944, Mangochi, Malawi
lives in: York, United Kingdom

Jack Mapanje was born on March 25, 1944 in Mangochi, Malawi geboren. He studied Englisch and Education in Malawi and England and in 1983 received his PhD in Lingusitics from the University College London. In 1975, he joined the Department of English at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, where he later was appointed Head of the Department of English.

His first collection of poems, Of Chameleons and Gods, was published in the U. K. in 1981 and where soon withdrawn from bookshops, libraries and all instutitions of learning in Malawi. Mapanje was imprisoned without trial or charge by the Malawian government in 1987, and although many writers, linguists and human rights activists campaigned for his release, he was not freed until 1991. Mapanje went into exile in Great Britain.

Today Mapanje lives in York and teaches at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Besides being a poet and working as a lecturer Mapanje also is an editor. In 2002 he, f. e., released Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing.

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