This week in our poetry news roundup we look at the death of the Malawian poet Jack Mapanje and the winner of this year’s ACU Prize for Poetry.
Malawian Poet Jack Mapanje Passes Away Aged 82
Jack Mapanje, the poet, linguist and human rights campaigner who was imprisoned without trial because of his poetry, has died at the age of 82. Widely seen as Malawi’s foremost poet, Mapanje died in the UK on Wednesday, November 4th, following an illness. He had lived in York for most of the three decades since leaving Malawi in 1991.
Born John Alfred Clement Mapanje in Kadango Village, in Malawi’s Mangochi District, in 1944, he studied in Malawi and London and went on to earn a PhD in linguistics from University College London. After teaching in secondary schools, he joined the English department at Chancellor College, part of the University of Malawi, eventually becoming its head. He was also one of the founders of the Malawi Writers Group.
His first collection, Of Chameleons and Gods, was published in 1981. Its coded, metaphor-rich poems criticized the authoritarian rule of President Hastings Banda, and though never officially banned, the book was quietly withdrawn from circulation. In September 1987 Mapanje was arrested and held without charge at Mikuyu Prison, where he would spend more than three and a half years. His detention became an international cause: Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience, Harold Pinter read his poems outside the Malawian High Commission in London, and Wole Soyinka added his voice to the campaign for his release. While still behind bars he was honored with the Rotterdam Poetry International Award and the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.
Following his release in 1991, Mapanje settled in Britain, where he held a fellowship at the University of York and went on to teach at universities in Leeds and Newcastle, as well as leading creative writing classes in prisons. In the early 2000s he was poet in residence at Dove Cottage in Grasmere, the former home of William Wordsworth.
His later books included The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison, The Last of the Sweet Bananas: New and Selected Poems and Beasts of Nalunga, which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2007. His 2011 memoir, And Crocodiles Are Hungry at Night, gave a personal account of his imprisonment and exile and was later adapted for the stage.
Tributes have poured in from across Malawi, with former president Bakili Muluzi praising his courage and the lessons his life and work hold for younger generations. His son Lunda confirmed his death and said funeral arrangements have yet to be finalized.
2026 ACU Prize for Poetry Winner Announced
Jennifer Kornberger, a poet and artist from Fremantle, has won the Australian Catholic University’s Prize for Poetry, one of Australia’s richest awards for a single poem. She is the first Western Australia-based poet to take the A$10,000 top prize since the competition began in 2013.
Her winning poem, In the Back of the Ambulance, was picked from 677 entries written on this year’s theme of “Witness.” It recalls a frightening episode while traveling through Austria, when Kornberger woke one morning so dizzy she could barely function. It turned out she was suffering from a severe form of vertigo. Despite speaking no German, she bonded with the young paramedic caring for her, who had opted for civilian rather than compulsory military service, and spent the 20-minute ride to the hospital becoming, as she puts it, “a paramedic of poetry.”
The judges, Emeritus Professor Margot Hillel and Professor Robert Carver, praised its lyricism and humanity, noting that one brief encounter captures something universal: how two strangers can share a profound moment in an emergency, knowing they will likely never meet again.
Kornberger, who wrote her first published poem at the age of nine, was shortlisted for poetry in this year’s WA Premier’s Book Awards and has been shortlisted five times for the Newcastle Poetry Prize. She has long seen poetry as a healing art and often weaves it into live art installations, including one for the 2016 Fremantle Biennale.
Second prize of A$5,000 went to Mary Wickham from Melbourne for Angel, while Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman of New South Wales took third place and A$3,000 for Looking Upward.
