Chanco mourns former lecturer

A former academician and writer Landeg White who taught at the University of Malawi’s (Unima) Chancellor College, died on Monday December 5 in Portugal where he had retired.

White joined Unima as a lecturer in the English Department in 1969. He taught English until his deportation back home in the 1970s.

A lecturer from Chancellor College’s English Department Damazio Mfune says the department is mourning the passing on of one of its early members of staff.

“We are mourning the death of a giant in African and Malawian literature. We rank him in the same category of Ruth Finnegan and Adrian Roscoe, among others, on their contributions to African and Malawian literature,” he said in a telephone interview.

A former lecturer at Chancellor College, Professor Felix Mnthali said he will always remember his colleague as a simple and nice man.

“We joined Chancellor College together in 1969 as lecturers in the English Department. When he was deported back home, he went to teach in Zambia,” he said in a telephone interview.

White published a number of articles in different academic journals on oral Malawian literature and poetry.

Then from Zambia he went back to York University in England where he the Centre of Southern African Studies.

Some of the books he wrote are Magomero: Portrait of an African Village and Livingstone’s Funeral. n