Six books by writers from Malawi, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and And Crocodiles Are Hungry at Night.
Malawi's best-known book abroad is The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer's account of a teenager building a windmill during the 2001–02 famine. Much Malawian writing is shaped by politics: Nyasaland became independent Malawi in 1964, and Hastings Banda's one-party rule, which lasted until 1994, brought censorship and the detention of critics. Writers work mainly in English and Chichewa.
The poet Jack Mapanje recalls his own imprisonment without trial in And Crocodiles Are Hungry at Night, and Legson Kayira's I Will Try tells how a young man set out on foot from northern Nyasaland in search of an education. In fiction, Aubrey Kachingwe's No Easy Task is set during the late-colonial struggle for independence, and Tiyambe Zeleza's Smouldering Charcoal takes place in a one-party state closely resembling Banda's Malawi.
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A village boy builds a windmill during the 2001–02 famine, showing rural farming life and hardship in Wimbe, central Malawi.
The poet's memoir of detention without trial under Banda's one-party state, showing censorship and fear in late twentieth-century Malawi.
A humorous memoir of growing up in Malawi in the 1970s and 80s, with Banda-era school life, religion and family.
The autobiography of a boy from northern Malawi who walks toward education in the 1950s, showing colonial-era village life and ambition.
A Malawian novel of everyday life and social and political tensions in post-independence Malawi, written by a Malawian author.
A novel of late-colonial Nyasaland, showing the political awakening and nationalist struggle against the Central African Federation that led toward Malawian independence.
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