Nyimbo, kama tanzu ya fasihi yeyote ile zina majukumu mbalimbali ambayo hutekeleza katika jamii. Lengo kuu la fasihi ni lile la kuielimisha na hata kuiburudisha jamii. Ndivyo ilivyo katika nyimbo kwa sababu kupitia kwazo wanajamii huburudika na kuelimishwa. Ni kwa sababu hiyo ndipo makala hii inalenga kuangalia nafasi ya nyimbo zinazopendwa katika fasihi ya Kiswahili. Huu ni utanzu ambao huwafikia watu wengi katika jamii. Kutokana na kutumia lugha ya Kiswahili, utanzu huu unaweza kueleweka na Wakenya wengi. Nchini Kenya, vyombo vya habari vimeipa fasihi hii nafasi kubwa sana na hivyo basi kuipanua hadhira yake. Hii ni kutokana na sababu kuwa fasihi hii inathaminiwa sana na wengi na ipewe nafasi kubwa katika vyombo vya habari hasa katika redio kwa muda mrefu. Ni kutokana na sababu hii ndipo tunajaribu kuonyesha nafasi yake katika fasihi ya Kiswahili.

This paper deals with intertextuality in two contemporary Swahili novels: Euphrase Kezilahabi`s Nagona (1987/1990) and William E. Mkufya`s Ziraili na Zirani (1999). It is a first approach to intertextual relations between these two novels. My aim is to show how the contemporary Swahili novel has further opened up its scope to universal questions of mankind. Nagona describes the journey of an unnamed protagonist through strangely abandoned landscapes and his surrealistic experience. It is written in a puzzling style between realism and hallucination. The second work, Ziraili na Zirani, is a novel written in the style of an epic. Dwelling on its literary role models, which are Dante`s Divina Commedia (1312-1321) and Milton`s Paradise Lost (1658-1665), it describes the battle over religion. It takes the reader on a fantastic journey between heaven, paradise and hell, with several excursions to the historical and contemporary malices and catastrophes on earth.

This article deals with the translation into Italian of the Swahili novel Utengano by Said Ahmad Mohamed, which was published in March 2005 under the title `Seperazione`by an Italian Publishing House, Rubbettino Editiore. Translation is a very important form of intercultural communication, which can provide contact with new readers, expected and unexpected ones. In the following pages I will decribe the main features of my translation of the novel Utengano, highlighting the main differences between the first version, that I produced as an appendix to the M.A. thesis, and the manuscript that I submitted to the publishing house.

In the last decades many literary critics have appraised the works of Zanzibarian writers; referring to the prose of Mohamed Suleiman Mohamed, Said Ahmed Mohamed and Shafi Adam Shafi, M M. Mulokozi wrote in 1985: \"The most significant, and certainly most spectacular, development in the Swahili fiction of the Seventies and Eighties has been the emergence of Zanzibar as the producer of the best Swahili fiction to date, and the apparent torch bearer for the Kiswahili novel of the near future\" (Arnold 1985: 174). The same enthusiasm was shared by R. Ohly who, confronting the novels written by Zanzibarian writers and those by Tanzanian and Kenyan writers in a time span going from 1975 to 1981, has defined the Zanzibarian prose a challenge to the artistic competence of other Swahili writers (cf. Ohly 1990). Although I found the comparative pattern used by Ohly debatable, having concentrated for the up-country literary production only on popular short novels - to be better evaluated not following negative, contrastive cliches but within the context of that particular trend -, obscuring moreover other talented writers like Euphrase Kezilahabi or Claude Mung`ong`o, his criticism has nevertheless the merit of having highlighted the main qualities of Zanzibarian novels, namely a deep interest for historical and social matters, along with an extremely rich and colourful language and a serious concern for stylistic features. These attributes of Zanzibarian literary style fit very well to the last novel by Shafi Adam Shafi, Vuta n`kuvute, published in 1999; in the following pages my aim is to explore the way the author of this work artistically manipulates themes, literary suggestions and stylistic devices, re-elaborating thus the experience of Kiswahili and Zanzibarian prose in a creative way.

The bilingual Tanzanian writer William Eliezer Mkufya was born on the 18th of June 1953 in Tanga region. Mkufya is a self-trained writer as he had a scientific education. Ua la Faraja (The flower of consolation) won the TEPUSA best manuscript award in 2001 and was published in 2004. it is supposed to be the first part of the trilogy Maua (Flowers) in which the author commits himself to the fight against the plague of AIDS in the context of the existentialist philosophy. In more than 400 pages he presents several persons affected by this frightening disease and even if no one recovers his or her health, the author did not sink into pessimism, but presents a sign of hope, or rather a `flower of consolation`. Mkufya returns with Ua la Faraja to the realistic novel, assuming the traditional role of a teacher. Although his main concern is to convey a message explaining how to face the calamity that is affecting Africa more severely than any other part of the world, he has achieved it with an anti-melodramatic approach and with great skill.

I would like to present the latest novel by Said Ahmed Mohamed, Babu alipofofuka (\'When Grandfather came to life again\'), published at the end of the last year. The mine will be only a first, preliminary and very inadequate attempt as, I am sure, this work will challenge us for quite a few years. In fact, after five realistic novels the author has adopted a new technique, turning to magic realism as he himself defines his work, but perhaps it is a too limitative definition. He depicts our world in a near future, when Tanzania and other African countries will have already undergone the process of globalization. The results are disastrous: impoverished and dulled masses are governed by a handful of immensely rich, powerful and arrogant persons mostly of foreign origin, deprived of all human qualities, who have thrown away any inhibition and deliberately sunk in all sorts of physical and moral debasement; nothing embarrasses nor frightens them anymore as they feel unpunishable.

\"Are there any national literatures in black Africa yet? The simple answer is no. [...] If one examines the development of the African language literature that do exists, one is struck by certain recurring tendencies. Many of the books produced, particularly the early works, are of a predominantly moralistic nature. Sometimes they are retelling of folk stories or Bible stories, sometimes imitations of European religious literature, sometimes both.\\\" (Lindfors 1997: 121; 123) Certain anomalies are obvious in the above extract. Swahili written literature with its long-standing tradition, dating far back to the 17th century, has relativly gathered its own aesthetic criteria, values and sensibility, hence \\\''own\\\'' integrity and world view. I dare say that Lindfors will be suprised to learn today, how fast the Swahili novel has developed since when he had left it when he read Andrzejewski et al (1985) and Gérard (1981), who (by the way), themselves did not then see the their works as presenting a complete picture of African literatures in African languages. This essay aims at showing the predicament of the Swahili novelist at the crossroads and how, in a contemporary situation, s/he works out his or her strategies towards resolving the impasses.

The bilingual Tanzanian writer William Eliezer Mkufya was born on the 18th of June 1953 in Tanga region. Mkufya is a self-trained writer as he had a scientific education. Ua la Faraja (The flower of consolation) won the TEPUSA best manuscript award in 2001 and was published in 2004. it is supposed to be the first part of the trilogy Maua (Flowers) in which the author commits himself to the fight against the plague of AIDS in the context of the existentialist philosophy. In more than 400 pages he presents several persons affected by this frightening disease and even if no one recovers his or her health, the author did not sink into pessimism, but presents a sign of hope, or rather a `flower of consolation`. Mkufya returns with Ua la Faraja to the realistic novel, assuming the traditional role of a teacher. Although his main concern is to convey a message explaining how to face the calamity that is affecting Africa more severely than any other part of the world, he has achieved it with an anti-melodramatic approach and with great skill.

This paper deals with intertextuality in two contemporary Swahili novels: Euphrase Kezilahabi`s Nagona (1987/1990) and William E. Mkufya`s Ziraili na Zirani (1999). It is a first approach to intertextual relations between these two novels. My aim is to show how the contemporary Swahili novel has further opened up its scope to universal questions of mankind. Nagona describes the journey of an unnamed protagonist through strangely abandoned landscapes and his surrealistic experience. It is written in a puzzling style between realism and hallucination. The second work, Ziraili na Zirani, is a novel written in the style of an epic. Dwelling on its literary role models, which are Dante`s Divina Commedia (1312-1321) and Milton`s Paradise Lost (1658-1665), it describes the battle over religion. It takes the reader on a fantastic journey between heaven, paradise and hell, with several excursions to the historical and contemporary malices and catastrophes on earth.

This article deals with the translation into Italian of the Swahili novel Utengano by Said Ahmad Mohamed, which was published in March 2005 under the title `Seperazione`by an Italian Publishing House, Rubbettino Editiore. Translation is a very important form of intercultural communication, which can provide contact with new readers, expected and unexpected ones. In the following pages I will decribe the main features of my translation of the novel Utengano, highlighting the main differences between the first version, that I produced as an appendix to the M.A. thesis, and the manuscript that I submitted to the publishing house.