Writing under Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda's dictatorial leadership in Malawi, with its stiff censorship laws and intolerance to dissenting voices, required that Anthony Nazombe, one of Malawi's leading poets, adopt a private and cryptic mode of writing to outwit the censors and avoid political persecution. This essay attempts to show that the poetic form, and the style and technique he adopted as a poet, enabled Anthony Nazombe to express his anger against, and disillusionment with, the excesses of Kamuzu Banda without attracting reprisals. Plain writing, with no circumspection, and yet expressing the sentiments we find in his poetry would have been a sure way of signing his detention order. Nazombe's creative use of language and his caution in masking his message, proved effective in outwitting the censors. Besides, the poetic form made it easier for him to express his feelings simply and easily, while the instability of poetic meaning and the "esoteric character of modern poetry […] render[ed] it peculiarly suitable to [the] sensitive political climate" (Gérard, 1986, 968).

The reign of Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda and his Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in Malawi was characterised by terror, murder, repression and coercion. Banda, Malawi's leader from independence in 1964 to 1994, ruled Malawi with an iron fist and his word was law. Malawi was a one party state where no opposition was tolerated. Some commentators have observed that Banda's firm grip on political power and the transformation of Malawian political culture from a multiparty democracy to a full-blown dictatorship were inevitable after the Cabinet Crisis of 1964, which exposed the disunity within the top leadership of the MCP (Phiri, 2000, 3). The Malawi Cabinet Crisis "began on 26 July with a speech by President Banda on his return from the Cairo summit of the Organization of African Unity in which he attacked unnamed members of his cabinet for questioning his policies" (Vail and White, 1990, 32). This later led to the dismissal of several so-called rebel ministers, Kanyama Chiume, Orton Chirwa, Augustine Bwanausi and Rose Chibambo. In sympathy with the dismissed ministers, Yatuta Chisiza, Willie Chokani and later Henry Masauko Chipembere resigned. Two insurrections were consequently launched by Chipembere and Chisiza to try to depose Banda, but he (Banda) squashed them both and proceeded to build his hegemony.

However, Banda’s totalitarian tendencies began to show before the Cabinet Crisis. For instance, in his speech at a mass rally on 24 May 1964 at Colby Community Centre in Blantyre Banda said:

The Malawi system, the Malawi style is that Kamuzu says it's just that, and then it's finished. Whether anyone likes it or not, that is how it is going to be here. No nonsense, no nonsense. You can't have everybody deciding what to do. (Lwanda, 1996-97, 38)

Commonwealth Literature Journal, Anthony Nazombe, Malawian Poetry, Malawi Writers Group, Jack Mapanje, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Malawi Congress Party, Malawi Cabinet Crisis, Preservation of Public Security Act, Malawi Young Pioneers, Special Intelligence Service, National Censorship Board, African Literature.