Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Narrating Values Describing a World
- 2 Shaaban Robert The Optimism of Writing
- 3 The Crisis of the Bildungsroman
- 4 Euphrase Kezilahabi An Initiatory Realism
- 5 The Political Novel
- 6 Mohamed Suleiman Mohamed Narrating a Dual Reality
- 7 The Criminals & the Corrupted
- 8 Investigations & Enigmas
- 9 Said Ahmed Mohamed The Dark Side of Images
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - The Political Novel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Narrating Values Describing a World
- 2 Shaaban Robert The Optimism of Writing
- 3 The Crisis of the Bildungsroman
- 4 Euphrase Kezilahabi An Initiatory Realism
- 5 The Political Novel
- 6 Mohamed Suleiman Mohamed Narrating a Dual Reality
- 7 The Criminals & the Corrupted
- 8 Investigations & Enigmas
- 9 Said Ahmed Mohamed The Dark Side of Images
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Historical circumstances easily explain why political questions have been at the heart of the Swahili novel in Tanzania in the years since independence. Patricia Mbughuni has argued that Swahili literature followed the path of a politicization that steadily became more explicit (Mbughuni, 1978a). The years under Nyerere's regime fall within this scheme. Tanzanian society was shaped by political sloganeering for at least three decades. This society was subjected to a pronounced political thrust. The Arusha Declaration of 1967 that launched the Ujamaa politics of grouping villages is an example of a discourse that is closely connected with basic social transformations.
The direct impact of words fired the imagination of writers of that time. In an article on the effect of the state's ideology on Swahili language and literature, Jan Blommaert shows
…how and to what extent Ujamaa provided an overall orientation for literary practice in Tanzania, how it structured this field by determining the relevant topics of literary discussion and debate, how it influenced criteria of quality in assessing literary products, and how it came to be used as a default mode for discussing social themes in literature…
(Blommaert, 1997: 254)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Swahili NovelChallenging the Idea of 'Minor Literature', pp. 95 - 114Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013