Book Launch: Blantyre: Urban Evolution - A Photographic History

A special collaborative event with the Society of Malawi for the launch of Blantyre: Urban Evolution - A Photographic History, a landmark publication celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of Blantyre, Malawi.

Published by New Zanj Publishing, this richly illustrated 256-page book charts the development of Blantyre from its establishment on 23 October 1876 to the present day. Featuring more than 700 historic and contemporary photographs, it offers a unique visual record of the city's people, places and transformation over a century and a half.

We were delighted to be joined by the book's author, Jonathan Waters, who shared insights from the research, stories behind the photographs, and the process of documenting Blantyre's remarkable urban evolution.

Jonathan Waters was born in Harare in 1969 and attended Blakiston and Prince Edward schools. He went to Rhodes University, where he read for a BA in Journalism and Economics. After various stints in journalism around the world, he returned to Zimbabwe in 2001. In 2003, he started Zfn, an email information service, and between 2010 to 2016 he wrote the Central Africa Stock Exchanges (CASE) Handbook, published by New Zanj.

John is the author of Harare: Urban Evolution (published in 2015), Kariba: Legacy of a Vision (2020), Tree Tales of Zimbabwe (2021), A Glass Half Full (2022), which is a history of Zimbabwe’s wine industry, Cheers: A History of Beer in Zimbabwe (2023), Victoria Falls: The Grandest View of God’s Earth (2023) and Thomas Baines: The Victoria Falls – A Thousand Beauties (2024), Tree Tales of Zimbabwe Vol 2 (2024) and Blantyre: Urban Evolution (2026) to mark the 150th anniversary of Malawi’s commercial capital.

This hybrid event took place at the David Livingstone Birthplace Centre, Blantyre, Scotland.