David Rubadiri (19 July 1930 – 15 September 2018) was aMalawian diplomat, academic and poet, playwright and novelist. Rubadiri is ranked as one of Africa's most widely anthologized and celebrated poets to emerge after independence.^[1][2]

Rubadiri attendedKing's College, Budo, inUganda from 1941 to 1950, thenMakerere University inKampala (1952–56), where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in English literature and History. Between 1960 and 1962, he studied Literature atKing's College, Cambridge, earning an MA degree.^[3] He went on to receive a Diploma in Education from theUniversity of Bristol.^[4]

At Malawi's independence in 1964, Rubadiri was appointed the country's firstambassador to the United States and theUnited Nations (UN). When he presented his credentials to PresidentLyndon B. Johnson at theWhite House on 18 August 1964, he expressed the hope that his newly independent country would get more aid from the USA; he said that Malawi needed help to build its democratic institutions and noted that Malawi was already receiving US economic and technical help.^[5] That same year Rubadiri appeared on theNational Educational Television (New York City) seriesAfrican Writers of Today.^[6]

Rubadiri left the Malawian government in 1965 when he broke with PresidentHastings Banda.^[7] As an exile, Rubadiri taught at Makerere University (1968–75), but he was again exiled during theIdi Amin years.^[3][8] He was also Visiting Professor of English Literature atNorthwestern University in 1972.^[3] Rubadiri subsequently taught at theUniversity of Nairobi,Kenya (1976–84), and was also briefly, along withOkot p'Bitek, at theUniversity of Ibadan inNigeria, at the invitation ofWole Soyinka. Between 1975 and 1980, Rubadiri was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Theater of Kenya.^[4] From 1984 to 1997, he taught at theUniversity of Botswana, where he was dean of the Language and Social Sciences Education Department.

In 1997, after Banda's death, Rubadiri was reappointed Malawi's ambassador to the UN, and he was named vice-chancellor of theUniversity of Malawi in 2000.^[3] He received an honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Strathclyde in 2005.^[6]

Rubadiri died on 15 September 2018, aged 88, atMzuzu Central Hospital.^[2]

Rubadiri's poetry has been praised as being among "the richest of contemporary Africa".^[4] His work was published in the 1963 anthologyModern Poetry of Africa (East African Publishers, 1996), and appeared in international publications includingTransition,Black Orpheus andPrésence Africaine.

His only novel,No Bride Price, was published in 1967. It criticized the Banda regime and was, along withLegson Kayira'sThe Looming Shadow, among the earliest published fiction by Malawians.

• Growing Up With Poetry: An Anthology for Secondary Schools, 1989
• Poems from East Africa (co-edited withDavid Cook), 1971
• No Bride Price (novel), 1967
• Come To Tea (play), 1965
• "African Thunderstorm" (poem)
• "A negro labourer in Liverpool" (poem)

• Curriculum Vitae United Nations biography

• 1930 births
• 2018 deaths
• 20th-century male writers
• Academic staff of Makerere University
• Academic staff of the University of Botswana
• Academic staff of the University of Malawi
• Academic staff of the University of Nairobi
• Alumni of the University of Bristol
• Ambassadors of Malawi to the United States
• Anthologists
• Makerere University alumni
• Malawian diplomats
• Malawian novelists
• Malawian poets
• People from Ruvuma Region
• Permanent representatives of Malawi to the United Nations
• Vice-chancellors of universities in Malawi

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata