{{short description|none}} <!-- "none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see [[WP:SDNONE]] --> Up to the second half of the 20th century, '''Tanzanian literature''' was primarily oral.<ref name="otiso" /> Major oral literary forms include folktales, poems, riddles, proverbs, and songs.<ref name="otiso" /> The majority of the oral literature in Tanzania that has been recorded is in [[Swahili language|Swahili]], though each of the country's languages has its own oral tradition.<ref name="otiso" /> The country's oral literature is currently declining because of social changes that make transmission of oral literature more difficult and because of the devaluation of oral literature that has accompanied Tanzania's development.<ref name="otiso" /> Tanzania's written literary tradition has produced relatively few writers and works; Tanzania does not have a strong reading culture, and books are often expensive and hard to come by.<ref name="otiso" /> Most Tanzanian literature is orally performed or written in Swahili, and a smaller number of works have been published in English.<ref name="otiso" /> Major figures in Tanzanian modern literature include [[Shaaban Robert]], [[Muhammed Said Abdulla]], [[Aniceti Kitereza]], [[Ebrahim Hussein]], [[Abdulrazak Gurnah]], and [[Penina Muhando]].<ref name="otiso" />
==Literature in Swahili and other languages== One of the most prominent Swahili writers in Tanzania was [[Shaaban Robert]] (1909-1962), a poet, novelist and essayist. His works include ''Maisha yangu'' (''My Life'') and the poem ''Utenzi wa Vita vya Uhuru'' (''An Epic in the War for Freedom''). [[Muhammed Said Abdulla]] (1918-1991) was a prominent novelist, who particularly wrote detective stories.
[[Aniceti Kitereza]] (1896–1981), whose novel ''[[Mr. Myombekere and His Wife Bugonoka, Their Son Ntulanalwo and Daughter Bulihwali|Myombekere na Bugonoka na Ntulanalwo na Bulihwali]]'' was written in his native language [[Kerewe people|Kikerewe]] and later translated to Swahili, German, English and French.
Other Swahili-language authors from Tanzania include poets [[Mathias E. Mnyampala]] (1917–1969) and [[Euphrase Kezilahabi]] (1944–2020), novelists [[Shafi Adam Shafi]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Aiello Traoré |first=Flavia |date=2012-08-13 |title=Investigating topics and style in Vuta N'Kuvute by Shafi Adam Shafi |url=https://ul.qucosa.de/landing-page/?tx_dlf%5Bid%5D=https://ul.qucosa.de/api/qucosa%253A11525/mets |journal=Swahili Forum 2002 |language=en |volume=9 |pages=35–41}}</ref> [[Fadhy Mtanga]], Hussein Issa Tuwa, Maundu Mwingizi, Changas Mwangalela, Joseph Mbele, as well as playwrights [[Ebrahim Hussein]],<ref name="Fitzpatrick">{{cite book|last=Fitzpatrick|first=Mary|title=Tanzania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ubmHjDwl18YC&pg=PA32|year=2008|publisher=Lonely Planet|isbn=978-1-74104-555-0|pages=32–33}}</ref> [[Penina Muhando]]<ref>{{Cite web|title=Penina O. Muhando {{!}} African playwright|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Penina-O-Muhando|access-date=2020-11-22|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref> or [[Amandina Lihamba]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Banham|first=Martin|url=http://archive.org/details/historytheatreaf00banh|title=A history of theatre in Africa|date=2004|publisher=Cambridge; New York : Cambridge University Press|others=Library Genesis|isbn=978-0-521-80813-2}}</ref>
An important genre of Swahili poetry are the lyrics of [[Taarab]] songs. These lyrics, that cross the genre boundaries between oral literature and [[Music of Tanzania|Swahili music]], are called ''wimbo,'' referring to poetry composed to be sung.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Hulshof|first=Carolien|title=Rusha Roho in Zanzibar {{!}} Cultural Musicology|url=https://culturalmusicology.org/rusha-roho-in-zanzibar/|access-date=2020-11-23|language=en-GB}}</ref>
[[Dinosaurs of Tendaguru]] (original title: Dinosaria wa Tendaguru) is a story for young readers that combines both fiction and [[natural history]], focussing on the discovery and subsequent excavations of [[dinosaur]] [[fossil]]s at [[Tendaguru Formation|Tendaguru]] hill in [[Lindi Region]] of [[Tanzania|South Eastern Tanzania]]. It was written in [[Kiswahili|Swahili]] by natural scientists Cassian Magori and Charles Saanane, with illustrations by the German graphic artist [[Thomas Thiemeyer]].
== Literature in English == Some Tanzanian authors write in English rather than in Swahili. The first Tanzanian novel to appear in English was [[Peter Palangyo]]'s ''Dying in the Sun'' (1968), which is considered to be one of the compelling works of [[modernism]] in [[African writing]] from this period.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ilieva |first=Emilia V. |title=Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. Vol. 2 |work= |publisher=Routledge |year=1994 |editor-last=Eugene Benson, L. W. Conolly |publication-place=London / New York |pages=1194 ff |language=en |chapter=Peter Palangyo}}</ref>
The following year, novelist and academic [[Gabriel Ruhumbika]] published ''[[Village in Uhuru]]''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gérard|first=Albert S.|title=European-language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D6PrqVKaZtgC&pg=PA957|year=1986|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=978-963-05-3834-3|page=957}}</ref> Other English-language writers include short-story writer Marti Mollel.<ref name="Fitzpatrick" />
In 2021, British writer [[Abdulrazak Gurnah]], who was born in 1948 in the [[Sultanate of Zanzibar]] and emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1960, was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]].<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-10-07|title=Abdulrazak Gurnah wins the 2021 Nobel prize in literature|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/07/abdulrazak-gurnah-wins-the-2021-nobel-prize-in-literature|access-date=2021-11-29|website=the Guardian|language=en}}</ref> His novels written in English explore "the impact of colonialism on East African identity, and the experiences of [[refugee]]s as they are forced to seek homes elsewhere." His novels had been shortlisted before for both the [[Booker Prize]] and the [[Commonwealth Writers Prize]]. His best-known works include ''[[Paradise (Abdulrazak Gurnah)|Paradise]]'' (1994), ''[[Desertion (novel)|Desertion]]'' (2005) and ''[[Afterlives]]'' (2020).
In Tanzania, however, his work was largely unknown before he became a Nobel laureate.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2021-11-08 |title=Why Tanzanian Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah is hardly known back home |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59178826 |access-date=2021-11-29}}</ref> The first Swahili translation of his novel ''Paradise,'' titled ''Peponi'', was done by Ida Hadjivayanis, an academic at the [[SOAS University of London|School of Oriental and African Studies]] of the University of London in 2022 and published by [[Mkuki na Nyota]] in Tanzania.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BARAZA: Swahili studies conference 2022 |url=https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/baraza-swahili-studies-conference-2022 |access-date=2022-10-24 |website=SOAS |language=en}}</ref>
Authors like [[Elieshi Lema]] (born 1949) have published works both in Swahili and English. Lema began writing poetry and then children's books in [[Swahili language|Swahili]], before writing her first novel ''Parched Earth'' in English in 2001. This novel has been translated into Swedish and French and received an honourable mention for the [[Noma Award for Publishing in Africa]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-06-24 |title=Elieshi Lema (Tanzania) - Centre for Creative Arts |url=http://www.cca.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/tow-past-participants/46-tow-2013/207-elieshi-lema-tanzania |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170624071348/http://www.cca.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/tow-past-participants/46-tow-2013/207-elieshi-lema-tanzania |archive-date=2017-06-24 |access-date=2020-11-22}}</ref>
== See also == * [[African literature]] *[[Swahili literature]], including Kenya * [[List of Tanzanian writers]]
== References == <references> <ref name="otiso">{{cite book|author=Kefa M. Otiso|title=Culture and Customs of Tanzania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=90d9pKhSjAIC|year=2013|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-313-08708-0|chapter=Chapter 3}}</ref> </references>
== Further reading == * Lihamba, Amandina. (2004). "Tanzania". In Banham, Martin (ed.). ''A History of Theatre in Africa''. Cambridge University Press. p. 243. ISBN 9780521808132. * Madumulla, Joshua; Bertoncini, Elena; Blommaert, Jan (1999). "Politics, ideology and poetic form: The literary debate in Tanzania". In Blommaert, Jan (ed.). ''Language Ideological Debates''. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 307–342. doi:10.1515/9783110808049.307. ISBN 978-3-11-016350-6. * Muhando, Penina. (1990). "Creating in the Mother-Tongue: The Challenges to the African Writer Today". ''Research in African Literatures'', 21(4), pp. 5–14.
{{Authority control}} {{Tanzania topics}} {{African topic|| literature}}
[[Category:African literature]] [[Category:Tanzanian literature]]