Shaaban Robert -- widely (including repeatedly in this piece) called the 'Shakespeare of Swahili' -- is profiled in the Saturday Nation by Julius Sigei, in The school dropout who became the father of Swahili literature (and, of course, he's now also had schools named after him ...).
As the piece notes in opening:
It amazes me that the work of even such significant African authors who happen not have written in English (or French, Arabic, or Portuguese ...) is not more readily accessible in English (or other tranlsations). (Amazingly -- though of course there was also a Cold War factor at play here -- Sigei reports: "Russian was the first European language into which his works were translated beginning with Wasifu wa Siti Binti Saad, which was translated in 1963".)
As the piece notes in opening:
Generations of Kenyans studied his epic novel Kusadikika, an allegorical work of an imaginary state in which injustices are perpetrated against all notions of justice, law and humanity.This has been translated into English, but can't readily be found; the African Books Collective at least offer a good selection of his work in Swahili, but ... well, it's in Swahili.
It amazes me that the work of even such significant African authors who happen not have written in English (or French, Arabic, or Portuguese ...) is not more readily accessible in English (or other tranlsations). (Amazingly -- though of course there was also a Cold War factor at play here -- Sigei reports: "Russian was the first European language into which his works were translated beginning with Wasifu wa Siti Binti Saad, which was translated in 1963".)