Episode details

World Service,30 Jul 1999,4 mins

Poet Behind Bars

My Century

Available for over a year

Jack Mapanje is Malawi's most famous poet. In 1987 Dr Hastings Banda, the President of Malawi, imprisoned him without trial or charge. Jack was kept in prison for three years and he describes the appalling conditions there. He continued to write poems, keeping them in his memory and reciting them to keep sane.

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