Born in Luanshya, Frank Chipasula attended Saint Peter"s Primary School on Likoma Island, Soche Hill Day Secondary School, Malosa Secondary School, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, and, finally, the Great East Road Campus of the University of Zambia, Lusaka, where he was graduated Bachelor of Arts, in exile, in 1976.
Before leaving Malawi, Chipasula had worked as a freelance broadcaster for the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation while studying English and French at the university. In Lusaka, he served as English Editor for the National Education Company of Zambia, his first publishers, following his graduation from the University of Zambia. In 1978 Chipasula went into exile in the United States as a result of the Hastings Banda government, studying for his Master of Arts in Creative Writing at Brown University, a second Master of Arts in African American Studies at Yale University and gaining a Doctor of Philosophy in English literature from Brown University in 1987 Previously a professor of Black Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Howard University, Chipasula has also worked as the education attache at the Malawian embassy in Washington, District of Columbia
His first book,Visions and Reflections (1972), is also the first published poetry volume in English by a Malawian writer
As well as poetry, which has been widely anthologised, he has written radio plays and fiction. Since January 10, 1976, Chipasula has been married to Stella, a former school teacher, whom he met in Mulanje, Malawi, in 1972.
They have two grown children, James Masauko Mgeni Akuzike and Helen Chipo.
