Writer Lucius Mafunga Phaiya has died at Mulanje District Hospital, his niece Cecilia has confirmed with Malawi Voice.
Mafunga, who has two novels to his name, including the latest one ‘Rising to the bottom’ died of brain tumor, according to Kumbani.
Mafunga came into the literally limelight in the late 1990s to mid 2000s with countless poems, shortstories, news articles and features in various publications; Weekend Nation, Malawi News, Together Magazine in Malawi and Free Ads and The Knysna-Plett Herald in South Africa.
He recently published a novel ‘Rising to the botton’, whose manuscript scooped second position in the 2017 national literally award.
This was his second novel after ‘Third force’ an excerpt of which, under the same time won him a Consolation prize in the MAWU-FMB Short story awards of the same year.
According to Kumbali, Phaiya will be raid to rest on Saturday at Njema Village in TA Njema in Mulanje.
