Book launch: Promises, Power, Politics and Poverty: Democratic Transition in Malawi (1961-2024) by Dr John Lwanda, 5 November 2024, 6.30pm
The prolific social historian and medical doctor Dr John Lwanda will be at Chambo Market Bookshop and Art Gallery to launch his new and updated edition of the insightful work Promises, Power, Politics and Poverty: Democratic Transition in Malawi (1961-2024) (Mzuni Press, 2024).
Join us on Tuesday 5th November at 6.30pm for the launch with book reading, book signing, and Q&A with the author. As usual the entry is free.
(You will also have a chance to see our Charles Levison’s solo exhibition Landscapes of Malawi)
About the book
Power, Politics and Poverty: Democratic Transition in Malawi (1961-2024)
Dr. Banda’s thirty-year rule was the subject of Lwanda’s earlier book Kamuzu Banda of Malawi: a Study in Promise, Power and Paralysis, the first edition of which was in 1993. Malawi has been a multiparty democracy since the first multiparty elections on 17 May 1994. The first multiparty dispensation, under the United Democratic Front’s President Bakili Muluzi, experienced both startling successes and fantastic failures. Since then, the paralysing poverty has persisted, yet the once silent land is resonating with freedom of speech, free universal primary school education, an independent judiciary…
The first incarnation of this book was written in 1996, three years before the elections of 1999. At the time, some of the critical political questions then were: Could the UDF begin delivering on their pledges on poverty alleviation and development? Was the MCP capable of genuinely reforming itself? Could AFORD survive? Could democracy itself survive in Malawi? Could a new cadre of leadership emerge; one that was both unencumbered by the Banda legacy and which spoke for both rich and poor, rural and urban? These are some of the issues discussed in Promises, Power, Politics and Poverty the Democratic Transition in Malawi. This book is still, by far, the most detailed account of the political transition of 1991 to 1994, containing details of the origins of the UDF and AFORD, and charting the rise and fall of the Diaspora-based political parties. It also critically examined the performance of the new government up to 1996. It is an essential comprehensive reading for all those interested in the turbulent politics of Malawi, from 1961 to the present. It has dozens of illuminative pictures and anecdotes in the updated, new edition, published by Mzuni Press.
In praise of the book
Lwanda is the kind of writer who wants to put everything in…
- Landeg White, (Emeritus Director, Centre for Southern African Studies, York University).
He writes with deep knowledge, commendable compassion, and often remarkable analytical insight. This analysis of a complex political situation in Malawi since the defeat of Dr. Banda deserves to be considered very carefully by anyone who has the future of Africa, especially central Africa, at questions at heart
- George Shepperson (late Professor, and author of the seminal Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting and Significance of the Nyasaland Native Rising 1915 (1958))
About the author
John Lwanda, MB ChB, DCH, MRCP, FRCP (Edin & Glasg), PhD (Social Science & History), is a physician, social researcher, political historian and writer. An intellectual giant, he has published extensively, especially on Malawi’s historical and social front. His Kamuzu Banda of Malawi: A study in promise, power, and paralysis (Malawi under Dr Banda) (1961 to 1993) is considered by many to be a seminal work. Lwanda’s research interests include collecting, archiving and recording popular and traditional music, still photography and collecting Malawian artistic and craft objects, including fabrics. Logos Open Culture published his phenomenal contribution to Malawi’s arts and history, Making Music in Malawi in 2021.
Learn more about John Lwanda’s work at Pamtondo.
