Mapanje’s eulogy for Kayira

I am devastated. When Pierre dragged you to Africa Centre [in London] last August, you said: “I’ve come to get to know you by watching your play [a Nanzikambe Arts adaptation of Mapanje’s memoir And the Crocodiles are Hungry at Night]’.

We hugged nervously, for years our dictator’s kit having succeeded in separating us in our detached exile coves; you laughed when I recorded the tricks we invented to teach from your books that our country had naively banned; you thanked London Olympic Games for bringing us together.

Has that pledge to talk again come to this? Who will hold your books and the library that informed your mind now? Will our country dare to demand your body to lay among our heroes or to send your library to universities mushrooming all over the land, without a library? 


You were minor among African writers of your generation, but
for Malawi you were precious. They would not have banned your books.

May you rest in peace then until the Lord allows us to meet one day.