Malawian poet, academic, playwright, novelist and diplomat Professor James David Rubadiri has passed on at the age of 88 on the 15th of September, 2018.  Rubadiri, who was Malawi’s first ambassador to the UN and the USA was regarded as one of Africa’s most widely anthologized and celebrated poets to emerge after his country’s independence in 1964.

Rubadiri was born in July 19, 1930, where his father served as a District Officer while his mother was a homemaker who took care of the children as his father worked across the border in Tanzania. He crossed over to Uganda in search of better education and attended both primary and secondary education at King’s College, Budo in Uganda from 1941 to 1950, then Makerere University, Kampala from 1952-56, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English literature and History, before flying out to the University of London where he studied for a BA in Literature, History and Geography, and graduated with a first class honours degree. He went on to study MA in Literature at Cambridge before receiving a Diploma in Education from the University of Bristol.

After breaking off ties with the Malawian government in 1965, Rubadiri went on exile, teaching at Makerere University from 1968 to 1975, the University of Nairobi from 1976 to 1984, and, upon Wole Soyinka’s invitation, the University of Ibadan alongside Okot p’Bitek. He was further Dean of the Language and Social Sciences Education Department at the University of Botswana from 1984 to 1997. In 1997, he was reappointed Malawi’s ambassador to the UN, and then named Vice Chancellor of the University of Malawi in 2000. In 2005, he received an honorary Doctorate from the University of Strathclyde.

Rubadiri’s poetry appeared in the 1963 anthology Modern Poetry of Africa as well as in Transition, Black Orpheus, and Présence Africaine. His only novel, No Bride Price, which was published in 1967 and was critical of Malawi’s government, has been cited as among the earliest published fiction by Malawians. His other works include the anthologies Growing Up With Poetry: An Anthology for Secondary Schools (1989) and Poems from East Africa (1971), the latter of which he co-edited with David Cook, and the play Come To Tea (1965).

Read An African Thunderstorm by David Rubadiri.