Literature & Ideas
Landmark
Legson Kayira
1942 – 2012
Walked much of a continent to get to school, then wrote about it
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Malawi Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
He set out from northern Nyasaland on foot in search of an American education, walked something over two thousand kilometres, and turned it into a bestseller.
Legson Didimu Kayira left his village in northern Nyasaland in October 1958 with a few days' food, a Bible, a copy of The Pilgrim's Progress and a small axe, intending to walk to Cairo and find a ship to America, where he had read that Abraham Lincoln had been poor too.
He walked for well over a year and something in the order of two thousand kilometres, through Tanganyika, Uganda and Sudan, working and being fed along the way. At Kampala he found a directory of American colleges in a library, wrote to Skagit Valley College in Washington state, and was offered a place and a scholarship. The students of the college raised his fare, and the United States consulate accepted the passport he had been issued on the strength of a letter of admission.
He took degrees at Skagit Valley and the University of Washington and went on to Cambridge. I Will Try, his account of the walk, published in 1965 and named for his school motto, sold widely and has been in print for most of the years since.
He wrote four novels afterwards, including The Looming Shadow and The Detainee, which deal with power and fear in an African village under a government not unlike Hastings Banda's. He lived most of the rest of his life in London and died there in 2012.
He walked for well over a year and something in the order of two thousand kilometres, through Tanganyika, Uganda and Sudan, working and being fed along the way. At Kampala he found a directory of American colleges in a library, wrote to Skagit Valley College in Washington state, and was offered a place and a scholarship. The students of the college raised his fare, and the United States consulate accepted the passport he had been issued on the strength of a letter of admission.
He took degrees at Skagit Valley and the University of Washington and went on to Cambridge. I Will Try, his account of the walk, published in 1965 and named for his school motto, sold widely and has been in print for most of the years since.
He wrote four novels afterwards, including The Looming Shadow and The Detainee, which deal with power and fear in an African village under a government not unlike Hastings Banda's. He lived most of the rest of his life in London and died there in 2012.
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