Background
Kayira was born in Mpale, a village in Nyasaland (now Malawi). The precise date was not recorded. Soon after his birth, his mother threw him into the Didimu River as she could not afford to feed him.
Kayira was born in Mpale, a village in Nyasaland (now Malawi). The precise date was not recorded. Soon after his birth, his mother threw him into the Didimu River as she could not afford to feed him.
University of Washington. Street Catharine"s College.
Kayira, an ethnic Tumbuka, received an education at Skagit Valley College, University of Washington and Street Catharine"s College, Cambridge. His early works focused on Malawi"s rural life, while his later writings satirised the Hastings Banda regime. He was rescued and acquired the name "Didimu".
He himself added the English-sounding name "Legson" when he was in school.
When he reached Kampala in Uganda he saw the name of Skagit Valley College, Washington State, in a United States Information service directory, so he applied and was awarded a place and a scholarship. Kayira then embarked on a journey of over 3000 kilometres and walked to Khartoum, where he obtained a visa, and people from Skagit Valley raised the money to bring him over to Washington.
He arrived at Skagit Valley two years after setting out. He went on to become a graduate student at Cambridge University, and subsequently a probation officer and the author of several novels.
His autobiography, I Will Try, was on the New York Times bestseller list for 16 weeks after its publication in 1965.
He made his home in England, and died in London on 14 October 2012. In October, 2014, an American charitable organization called "Youth of Malawi" built a primary school in the rural Malawian village of Chimphamba and named it after Legson Kayira. The Legson Kayira Primary School and Community Center is solar-powered, rainwater harvesting, and boasts an outdoor movie projecter.