Tanzanian literature

[1] Major figures in Tanzanian modern literature include Shaaban Robert, Muhammed Said Abdulla, Aniceti Kitereza, Ebrahim Hussein, Abdulrazak Gurnah and Penina Muhando.

His works include Maisha yangu (My Life) and the poem Utenzi wa Vita vya Uhuru (An Epic in the War for Freedom).

These lyrics, that cross the genre boundaries between oral literature and Swahili music, are called wimbo, referring to poetry composed to be sung.

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.

[3] 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.

[10] The first Swahili translation of his novel Paradise, titled Peponi, was done by Ida Hadjivayanis, an academic at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London in 2022 and published by Mkuki na Nyota in Tanzania.