Uhuru wa Watumwa

…James Mbotela’s 1934 historical novel Uhuru wa Watumwa (“Freedom for the Slaves”), but it was the writing of Shaaban Robert (1909–62) that really gave impetus to a literature in the new Standard Swahili. The works of this Tanganyikan poet, novelist, and essayist gained wide circulation in the 1940s, ’50s, and…