author
Duff Macdonald
1850–1929
A Scottish missionary writer whose time in Central Africa left a deep mark on his work, he is best known for Africana, a vivid 1882 account of customs, beliefs, and mission life around Blantyre and Lake Nyasa.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in 1850, he was educated at Aberdeen University and ordained in the Church of Scotland in 1877. Soon afterward he was sent to the Blantyre mission in what is now Malawi, becoming the Church of Scotland’s first ordained missionary in central Africa.
His years in Africa were brief but eventful. He and his wife arrived in 1878, and alongside evangelism and language study he began shaping the young mission settlement. That period was later overshadowed by the "Blantyre scandal," and he was recalled and dismissed in 1881 after reports of severe punishments at the mission caused outrage in Scotland.
As a writer, he is remembered above all for Africana; or, the Heart of Heathen Africa (1882), published in two volumes: one on native customs and beliefs, the other on mission life. The book drew on close observation of East Central African societies, though it reflects the missionary viewpoint of its time. He spent the rest of his life as a parish minister in the Church of Scotland and died in 1929.