Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Tanzania Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
Poet, essayist and novelist who took Swahili out of the classical verse tradition and made it a language for modern prose — and is called its father from Mombasa to Lubumbashi.
Shaaban bin Robert worked as a clerk in the customs service and later in the veterinary and survey departments, and wrote in the evenings for thirty years.
He inherited a Swahili literary tradition that was largely classical religious verse, in Arabic script, and he did two things with it. He kept writing in the old forms and kept them alive; and he took the language into the modern novel, the essay and the autobiography, which nobody had really done. Kusadikika is a political allegory about a country in the sky. Adili na Nduguze reworks an Arabian Nights tale into moral fiction. Maisha Yangu na Baada ya Miaka Hamsini is the first substantial autobiography in Swahili. Utubora Mkulima argues for the dignity of labour.
He also argued, throughout, that Swahili was a language capable of anything and did not need to give way to English — a position that carried directly into the language policy of independent Tanzania. He died in 1962, months after Tanganyika became independent, and is called Baba wa Fasihi ya Kiswahili, the father of Swahili literature, across East Africa.
He inherited a Swahili literary tradition that was largely classical religious verse, in Arabic script, and he did two things with it. He kept writing in the old forms and kept them alive; and he took the language into the modern novel, the essay and the autobiography, which nobody had really done. Kusadikika is a political allegory about a country in the sky. Adili na Nduguze reworks an Arabian Nights tale into moral fiction. Maisha Yangu na Baada ya Miaka Hamsini is the first substantial autobiography in Swahili. Utubora Mkulima argues for the dignity of labour.
He also argued, throughout, that Swahili was a language capable of anything and did not need to give way to English — a position that carried directly into the language policy of independent Tanzania. He died in 1962, months after Tanganyika became independent, and is called Baba wa Fasihi ya Kiswahili, the father of Swahili literature, across East Africa.
Spotted something wrong? Tell us and we will check it.