The poet and novelist was born on 13 April 1944 in Ukerewe, near Lake Victoria, in Tanganyika (present day Tanzania). She studied at the University of Dar es Salaam. Later, she earned her PhD in African Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of African Literature and Languages of the University of Botswana.

She has published six novels, two collections of poems, one play and four short narratives. In 1990, she was recognized for her poetry works winning the Edoardo Sanguinetti Memorial Prize in Italy, and in 1995 she won the Shabaan Robert Memorial Prize for her contributions to Swahili literature. Her writings have been described as the manifestations of provocative thought in provocative simplicity.

She writes in Swahili, but she has published essays in English, like Aesthetic Ambivalence in Modern Swahili and The Concept of the Hero in African Fiction. Among her novels, those that stand out are: Mzingile (1991), Nagona (1990), Karibu Ndani (1988) and Rosa Mistika (1988).

Sources:

• Biography in Britannica Online Encyclopædia

• Biographical data about the author

More information:

• Original poems by the author

• The poet recites Una y otra vez (Once in a while) at the International Poetry Festival of Medellin