Utendi wa kutawafu Nabii, a characteristic example of the utenzi tradition in its early expression, commemorates the life of the prophet and includes his final message to the faithful before being visited by the angel of death. The poem exemplifies…
Swahili poetry prior to the twentieth century was written in ajami script that was adapted from Arabic. Many examples of this script have been preserved in manuscript form, as illustrated by the reproduction of the poem shown left, Utumbuizo wa…
Shaaban Robert was, above all, a poet. As noted on the back cover of this volume, “. . . the poems appearing here cover the entire spectrum of human existence: youth and old age, morality and religion, politics, the beauty and signification of…
Utendi wa Mwana Kupona [Mwana Kupona’s Poem] is one of the most popular poems in Swahili literature. It was written around 1858 by Mwana Kupona binti Mshamu (c. 1810-1860) for her daughter, Mwana Hashima binti Sheikh (1841-1933). Didactic in purpose,…
Utendi wa Mwana Kupona [Mwana Kupona’s Poem] is one of the most popular poems in Kiswahili literature. It was written around 1858 by Mwana Kupona binti Mshamu (c. 1810-1860) for her daughter, Mwana Hashima binti Sheikh (1841-1933). Didactic in…
In his last novels, such as the two above written shortly before his death in 1962, Robert became more reformist in principle and critical of his times. Utubora mkulima is an attack on capitalist society and its evils. Perhaps as a sequel in this…
George Orwell’s Animal Farm is quite possibly the most politicized text to be translated into the Swahili language. The text first appeared in 1967, the same year as the ujamaa socialist scheme was introduced in Tanzania. It was meant by the…