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.

It was written in Swahili by natural scientists Cassian Magori and Charles Saanane, with illustrations by the German graphic artist Thomas Thiemeyer.

[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.