All of Jack Mapanje's poetry grows in stature when placed in the Malawian context from which most of it springs, but the best of it is so emotionally charged that it can be appreciated with a minimal understanding of the circumstances in which it was produced. Through his verse he pushes back the frontiers of oral poetry; he speaks and asks questions in a country where unquestioning silence was, until recently, demanded. For years Mapanje walked a perilous path, trying out different voices, testing his vocation, neither courting danger for its own sake nor allowing himself to make disreputable compromises.

In 1987 he fell afoul of the repressive government and was imprisoned without charge or trial in one of the prisons in which Malawian "rebels" were expected to "rot." After more than three years of detention, Mapanje was released and allowed to leave the country of his birth. The...