Malawian academic
Mpalive-Hangson Msiska is a Malawian academic resident in London, England. He is a Reader Emeritus in English and Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London, with research and teaching interests in critical and cultural theory as well as postcolonial literature, including African literature, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe being notable subjects of his writing.[1]
Background
Mpalive Msiska studied in Malawi, Canada, Germany and Scotland, and previously taught at the University of Malawi, the University of Stirling and Bath Spa University, before becoming Reader in English and Humanities at Birkbeck University of London.[2][3] He is a former council member of the Royal African Society and serves on the advisory board of the Caine Prize.[4]
He has written many conference papers and journal articles, as well as books, among which are works on Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe. His 2007 publication Postcolonial Identity in Wole Soyinka is described as "a major and imaginative contribution to the study of Wole Soyinka, African literature, and postcolonial cultural theory and one in which writing and creativity stand in fruitful symbiosis with the critical sense."[5] According to a review by Kate Haines: "Mpalive-Hangson Msiska compellingly reads Soyinka's creative and critical work in dialogue with cultural studies, using this to highlight the important contribution African critics and writers have made to the ways in which power is read and understood today."[6] Msiska co-authored The Quiet Chameleon: A Study of Modern Poetry from Central Africa (1992), and was co-editor of Writing and Africa (1997).
He has been a judge of such literary prizes as the International Dublin Literary Award,[7][8] the Caine Prize for African Writing[9] and the Brunel University African Poetry Prize.[10]
