The Last of the Sweet Bananas : New & Selected Poems

Because he was a radical poet, Jack Mapanje was imprisoned without trial or charge by the dictator Hastings Banda of Malawi for nearly four years.The themes of his poetry range from the search for a sense of dignity and integrity under a repressive regime, incarceration, release from prison, exile and return to Africa, and reconciliation with torturers, to the writer in Africa and the continuing African liberation struggle in a hostile world.While often deadly serious, Mapanje's poems are lifted by the generosity of spirit and irrepressible humour which helped sustain him through his prison ordeal.