Salt and Light

Mamie and Jack Martin were Livingstonia (Scottish) missionaries to Bandawe and Ekwendeni in what was then Nyasaland in Central Africa. This book consists of their letters home and diary entries from the 1920s, and provides vivid and detailed descriptions of their lives as missionaries and of the local church communities of the period. The letters have been selected and edited by their eldest daughter, Margaret Sinclair, who returned to Bandawe whilst preparing the texts and researching the historical context. Her notes to the letters review an important chapter in Malawian church history, which is to-date under-researched and under-represented.

The book is intended to fill a gap in the narrative of Malawi's history, and promote a greater understanding of Scotland and Malawi's shared history; in the author's words: 'to explain 1920s Scotland to 2002 Malawi, and 1920s Malawi to 2002 Scotland'.