Description
Book SynopsisThis wide-ranging collection deals with the dynamics of current developments in literature, language, and culture in Kenya and Tanzania. It testifies to a spirited exchange of ideas between writers and academics and promotes transdisciplinary dialogue among several academic fields – anglophone and Swahili studies, literary studies and linguistics, East African and German academic discourse, Kenyan and Tanzanian perspectives. The contributions create a ‘contact zone’ of their own that will generate productive impulses for transdisciplinary research and allow readers to gain new insights into trajectories of Swahili and anglophone writing in East Africa. Topics covered include literary language choice and translation, popular fiction and codeswitching, Swahili hip-hop texts, HIV/AIDS discourse, the advance of ‘Sheng’ and ‘Engsh’ in literary-linguistic space, contemporary women’s literature in Kenya, and special studies of Abdulrazak Gurnah and David G. Maillu. CONTRIBUTORS MIKHAIL D. GROMOV • ABDULRAZAK GURNAH • SISSY HELFF • LILLIAN KAVITI • EUPHRASE KEZILAHABI • SAID A.M. KHAMIS • ALDIN K. MUTEMBEI • YVONNE ADHIAMBO OWUOR • UTA REUSTER–JAHN • ALINA N. RINKANYA • GABRIEL RUHUMBIKA • CLARISSA VIERKE • KYALLO WADI WAMITILA
Table of ContentsLUTZ DIEGNER & FRANK SCHULZE–ENGLER INTRODUCTION: Habari ya Contact Zone? East African Literature Revisited ABDULRAZAK GURNAH: Learning to Read EUPHRASE KEZILAHABI: Dialogic Swahili Literature: Key to Harmonization in Diversity SAID A.M. KHAMIS: Nguvu versus Power: Resilience of Swahili Language as Shown in Literature and Translation MIKHAIL D. GROMOV: Regional or Local? On ‘Literary Trajectories’ in Recent Swahili Writing CLARISSA VIERKE: Comparing the Incomparable? On the Poetic Use of Language in Swahili Hip-Hop and ‘Classical’ Swahili Poetry UTA REUSTER–JAHN: Literary Code-Switching in Contemporary Swahili Popular Fiction in Tanzania YVONNE ADHIAMBO OWUOR: O-Swahili: Language and Liminality SISSY HELFF: Measuring Silence: Dialogic Contact Zones in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea and Desertion ALINA N. RINKANYA: Code-Switching in Kenyan Women’s Literature After 2000 ALDIN K. MUTEMBEI: HIV/AIDS in Kiswahili and English Literary Works KYALLO WADI WAMITILA: Mapping Hybridity, Transgression, and Literary Experimentalism in Kenyan Literature: David G. Maillu LILLIAN KAVITI: From Stigma to Status: Sheng and Engsh in Kenya’s Linguistic and Literary Space GABRIEL RUHUMBIKA: The Role of Translations in the Development of Swahili Language and Literature Notes on Contributors Notes for Contributors to Matatu
