" ...For many years Mapanje had exercise skill in evading the blue pencil. He was a member of the Malawi Writer's Group and played an important part in developing the distinctive language and metaphors whereby the group exercised its views. Expressions such as 'leopards of Dedza' and 'Chingwe's Hole,' which recur in Mapanje's poems, are widely understood and have found their way into popular usage... "
"In the absence of any statement from the government the precise reasons for his detention are a matter of speculation, although clearly it was Mapanje's writing which upset the authorities. His 1981 collection of poems, "Of Chameleons and Gods," is banned from circulating in schools and bookshops in Malawi. After his arrest, Mapanje was first taken in handcuffs to the University of Malawi, where he is head of the Department of English Language and Literature. The police searched his office and seized various manuscripts, including poems and the paper delivered at a Conference in Stockholm in 1986, entitled "Censoring the African Poem: Personal Reflections." This includes an account of his problems with the Malawi Censorship Board. It is likely that the authorities were also concerned about Mapanje's plans to bring out a second volume of poems, provisionally entitled "Out of Bounds," and about an invitation for him to take up the post of writer-in-residence at the University of Zimbabwe.
"When "Of Chameleons and Gods" was published in 1981 it was neither officially proscribed nor cleared for sale. Thus bookshops were not allowed to display it, but no one could be prosecuted for possessing a copy. In 1985 the Ministry of Education and Culture issued a circular banning its use in schools and colleges. In his 1986 paper Mapanje quotes the polish novelist Tadeusz Konwicki to the effect that censorship "forces the writer to employ metaphors which raise the piece of writing to a higher level." He is amused that the Malawi Censorship board may have actually improved his poems.
" ...His poetry began to deal more overtly with political themes.... He now regards himself as 'Out of Bounds'...."
No further information is available as to Mapanje's imprisonment.
Source: Human Rights Watch/Africa Watch, "Where Silence Rules, The Suppression of Dissent in Malawi," October 1990, Pg. 75-79