Renowned poet Jack Mapanje is telling the story of his time as a political prisoner in Malawi in his memoirs. He talks to Sarah Foster.

STANDING naked and shivering in Mikuyu prison, Jack Mapanje's humiliation could not have been more complete. A published poet who was head of English at one university and chairman of a linguistic association for ten, he was prominent in his own country and beginning to catch the world's attention. The last thing he had expected was to be brought so low, and as he reflected on his shame, his thoughts turned philosophical. "Who did I think I was?" he wondered.

Jack had been sitting in a bar on an ordinary day in 1987, when he was arrested. Although it took him by surprise, he knew that, as an educated man who did not "toe the line", his position in his native Malawi, in southern Africa, was dangerously insecure.

The trouble had started back in 1964 when the British colony gained independence. Dr Hastings Banda had been appointed president and, soon afterwards, a split with his cabinet had ensued. Determined to make his stamp and secure the nation's loyalty, Banda had started weeding out anyone he considered a threat. By 1987, Jack fell firmly into this category. "Suddenly, I was becoming more popular and that was dangerous because Dr Banda and those surrounding him tried to eliminate anyone who became popular," he says.

Jack had first come into conflict with Banda's regime as a student in the 1960s. Already a qualified teacher, he had won a scholarship to the newly established Malawi University. It was a time of change and uncertainty.

"The country was now independent and the politicians were appealing to the universities to make their courses relevant. For the English department, this meant throwing away part of the colonial syllabus and introducing African literature. The problem was the writers who we expected to be on the syllabus were unacceptable to the president - they were in exile. So we decided we were going to do something about it," says Jack.

In 1969, he and about five other students, along with two firebrand lecturers, established a writers' group. It began tentatively, with members merely talking about other writers, but soon became a platform for their own work. "People would bring in their own poems and their own short stories. That was the beginning of the trouble because we were not encouraged to write. The writers' group became the most radical group of young men and women," says Jack.

It was no surprise that the group caused consternation among the nascent government, as many of the first nationalists were also writers cast out by Banda in his quest for sole power. This new breed took up their cause and sided with the exiled cabinet. "Anyone who supported them was usually branded 'rebel' and imprisoned," says Jack.

After finishing his degree, he went to London to continue studying, returning to teach at Malawi University. His interest in writing endured and, in 1981, his book of poems, Of Chameleons And Gods, was published. Although internationally acclaimed, it was banned in his homeland. His arrest followed Banda's appointment of his supporters to key positions, including at the university.

Jack recalls: "They took me to my office and searched it, then they took me to my house and searched my house. They dumped me in Mikuyu prison.

"Nobody told me why I was to be imprisoned. The inspector general of police simply said, 'We have been directed by the President to arrest you and detain you. He has not told us why. We are not going to investigate you because if we do, it shows that we do not believe what the President has told us, so will you tell us why should we arrest you and detain you? What is it that you have done to someone at the university?'

"Effectively they were telling me that someone in the university had reported me to the President," says Jack.

He remembers exactly how long he spent in prison - three years, seven months, 16 days and more than 12 hours. The time was dark and interminable. "The conditions were absolutely horrific. The food was horrible - full of weevils - and we were not allowed doctors or priests. Time passed so slowly," he says.

Initially put in solitary confinement, Jack was transferred to the kitchen when his fellow inmates, fearing he would go mad, persuaded the officer in charge to look at his case.

'It was there that we started talking to the outside world," says Jack. "People were writing notes to tell the world about the atrocities that were happening in the country. I was writing on Lifebuoy soap wrappers and toilet paper."

The prisoners - most of whom, like Jack, had not stood trial - relied on sympathetic guards to deliver their desperate messages. As they waited for a response, they could only hope and pray. "Those of us who didn't believe that God existed suddenly believed it," says Jack.

He was lucky that, owing to international pressure, torture had recently been largely abandoned - many of his predecessors were less fortunate. "Before me, people had been tortured and came out paralysed. People had died in that prison and nobody gave a damn," he says.

The hardest thing for Jack was being separated from his family - it was 22 months before they were even allowed to visit. "That was extremely cruel. I had a wife and three children. These were people who didn't care a damn about anything at all," he says.

During his time in prison, his beloved mother, who had sold beer to pay for his schooling, died. He could neither attend the funeral nor so much as view her body - something he still finds hard to come to terms with.

Yet unbeknown to him, the world was responding to his plight. Following his arrest, his friend and colleague, Father Pat O'Malley, had spread the news far and wide, and organisations like Amnesty, the writers' group Pen International and the Linguistics Association of Great Britain had adopted him as their cause.

Outrage at his imprisonment was felt globally and many high-profile writers were among his advocates, with Harold Pinter reading Jack's poetry outside the High Commission in London as a protest. "That is what saved me. If nobody shouts, they get rid of you," Jack says.

Finally, and with as little explanation as there was for his detention, he was released. He tried to return to his job but found the university hostile, so came to Britain, where he has struggled to find work.

Having just turned 60, he is now a senior lecturer at Newcastle University, teaching postgraduate courses in prison and memoir writing. He relishes the freedom to have his work published, and is documenting his own prison memoirs, which he hopes will be out next year.

Jack says that life has taught him to be positive. "You must laugh at yourself. My family loves fun - we laugh all the time," he says - and indeed, he laughs throughout the interview.

But he hints at another, darker side, which still bears the scars of Mikuyu jail. "I've discovered that the world is a prison. What we're all trying to do is get out of these prison conditions. There are times I think perhaps I'm not laughing - perhaps I'm crying," he says.