Narrative
Political Prisoner 3/75 of Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda of Malawi
Sam Mpasu · 1995
Synopsis
The account, presented as a true story, of the author's detention without trial from 1975 to 1977, at Zomba prison and then at Mikuyu, a high-security prison of the regime of Hastings Kamuzu Banda. The title takes up his prisoner number: he was the third political prisoner of the year 1975. A diplomat, he had published a novel whose title, Nobody's Friend, was read as an attack on the president, and he counts his detention to the day, two years, one month, one week and one day.
Context
The book appeared in 1995 in Harare, from African Publishing Group, twenty years after the novel that had led its author to prison. Mpasu, who had given up writing after his detention, took up the pen again while he was in charge of education in the first government of Malawian democracy. On leaving prison, he had been kept out of any employment for a year, before being hired by Lever Brothers in 1978.
Who it is for
A short narrative of about one hundred and thirty pages, in English; a direct testimony on the political prisons of Banda's Malawi.
Prizes and reception
A Nyasa Times columnist says he could not put it down for a moment, so lively was the writing.
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