Jack Mapanje was born on 25 March 1944 and is a Malawian writer and poet.
12 Facts About Jack Mapanje
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Jack Mapanje 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.
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Jack Mapanje was released in 1991 and emigrated to the UK, where he worked as a teacher.
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The child of Nyanja and Yao parents, John Alfred Clement Mapanje was born in Kadango Village, Mangochi District, Malawi.
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Jack Mapanje received his BA in education from the University of London and worked for a time as a lecturer in Malawi before returning to the UK to study linguistics at University College, London in the early 1980s.
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Jack Mapanje subsequently became head of the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Malawi.
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The collection obliquely criticized Banda's government, and the "chameleon" of the title refers to the disguise of personal voice Jack Mapanje deemed necessary in order to mount a criticism of the politics at the time.
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PEN's president, US novelist Larry McMurtry, stated that "the point [of the award] is to generate enough heat so Jack Mapanje gets out of jail".
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Jack Mapanje was held for three-and-a-half years before being released in 1991.
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Jack Mapanje wrote a memoir about the experience, And Crocodiles Are Hungry At Night, which was adapted into a play.
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Jack Mapanje later became a visiting professor at Leeds University.
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Jack Mapanje is credited for applying the term "chameleon politics" to describe a political environment where politicians switch parties and forge alliances without transparency or notice in rapidly changing political environments where party switching, floor crossing, and coalition formations are rampant.