K10m award for book on Malawi’s indigenous knowledge

The Malawi Union of Academic and Non-fiction Authors (MUANA) has been awarded K10 million by the COSOMA Copyright Fund for a national project to record and preserve Malawi’s indigenous knowledge.

Victor Sibale received the award on behalf of MUANA on Friday at the COSOMA offices in Area 5, Lilongwe.

Under the project, MUANA members will be invited to apply for a short, intensive writers’ residency. Each selected author will contribute to a book to be published by CLAIM.

‘Disappearing with our elders’

MUANA president Ndongolera Christopher Mwangupili told Nyasa Times that Malawi’s indigenous knowledge is fading, and that the book will help hand it to the next generation.

“For too long, our indigenous knowledge – our medicine, our farming wisdom, our food systems, our proverbs, our conflict resolution, our understanding of nature – has been unwritten, dismissed and is now disappearing with our elders,” he said. “Yet this knowledge holds answers to climate change, food security, health and true development.”

“To preserve it is to preserve who we are,” he added. “We want to write Malawi back into memory.”

About MUANA

MUANA was founded in 2014 to give non-fiction and academic writers a platform of their own, separate from one dominated by fiction.

It works to build members’ writing skills, promote academic publishing and support national goals such as Malawi 2063.