"A Place on the Banknote": The Year in Malawi

In his introduction to Political Prisoner 3/75, Sam Mpasu berates Malawian writers for what he suspects is their disinterest in documenting the lives of Malawi's many notable figures since independence. "There are no biographies or autobiographies in our bookshops," he laments: "We know little or nothing about the leading personalities who risked life and limb to fight for our freedom and independence" (ix). Mpasu further observes that this lack of interest remains well after Malawi returned to multiparty democracy in 1994,¹ for there are no biographies or autobiographies of all the presidents and vice presidents who have since come and gone in Malawi's political history. What baffles Mpasu even more is that this dearth of biographies and autobiographies is not only limited to political figures, but also extends to those in academia, the business community, civil society, and religious organizations who played critical roles to bring about multiparty democracy (xii). However, Timwa Lipenga's Lomathinda: Rose Chibambo Speaks and Ndongolera Mwangupili's A Gift to the People: Sr. Beatrice Chipeta's Legacy could be seen as recent responses to Mpasu's call on writers to gather the stories of figures who have impacted the lives of so many Malawians.

In this review, I will focus on Lipenga's biography of Rose Chibambo, which was inspired by the author's desire to document "women of substance and women's contribution to history" in Malawi ("Biography" 38). A lecturer in French at the University of Malawi, Chancellor College, Timwa Lipenga teamed up with two like-minded academics, Jessie Kabwila and Hendrina Kachapila-Mazizwa, to found a self-funded initiative called the Malawian Women's Voices Project to curate the life stories of "women who had engaged in struggles in Malawi in various domains, such as politics, religion, popular culture, education, health and entrepreneurship" (iv). At the project's inception ten years ago, the three scholars drew up a wide range of the women they wanted to feature, including politicians, academics, businesswomen, and traditional birth attendants (iv). Lomathinda was birthed out of this coordinated effort. Niculin Jäger aptly summarizes the book in the following terms:

Coming five decades after [Malawi's] independence, this book provides an insight into the life of Rose Chibambo. It […] tells us the story of her life and how she naturally got involved in politics the moment she sensed the injustice of segregation. It is the story of a woman who stood up and lived up to her convictions, fighting for self-determination, shaping the history of her country, Malawi.

Without any preceding experience in politics but with a natural sense of justice and solidarity, she and her fellow colleagues confronted the ruling system, in colonial times and after independence.

(ii–iii)

The book is shaped around the life and afterlife of Rose Chibambo, one of Malawi's most remarkable and committed political icons, freedom fighters, and philanthropists. Born Lomathinda Ziba, Chibambo is presented in the book as not only surviving her own difficult birth and childhood but also forging a formidable women's political movement to fight against colonial injustice and the neopatrimonialism that followed in its wake. "I went, talking to my friends, from house to house" (87), Chibambo recalls to Lipenga, adding that she "drafted a constitution, on a very plain paper" (88) to guide the operations of the newly formed Women's League. Chibambo was, in a way, incensed by a local chief who had belittled her at the time, saying that she, a woman, should leave political matters to men (86).² Therefore, she decided to join in the fight against tyranny and injustice. In many ways, Chibambo was challenging the troubling constructions of women in most sub-Saharan societies, and she was speaking against a cultural text that erroneously deems women incapable of doing anything worthwhile on their own. Chibambo went on to become the only female member of parliament and the first female deputy cabinet minister when Malawi gained independence from Britain in 1964.

Lipenga opts for a style where narration interrupts speech to present Chibambo's life instead of just...