Euphrase Kezilahabi
Euphrase Kezilahabi ( born April 13, 1944 at village Namagondo on the island Ukerewe in Lake Victoria in today's Tanzania ) is a Tanzanian, writing in Swahili novelist, poet and scholar.
Life
Kezilahabi joined the University of Dar es Salaam in 1970 with the title BA from and then worked as a teacher at various schools in Tanzania. He returned to his university where he taught in the Department of Swahili. The work to obtaining the MA was entitled Shaaban Robert: Mwandishi wa Riwaya. He received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. His further career took him to the University of Botswana, 2003 where he held the chair of African languages.
Kezilahabi is the first author who writes in Swahili and with this language historically associated traditions of expression and representation, particularly in poetry, broke.
The recurring themes in Kezilahabis writings are the modern development and urbanization and the Tanzanian experiment with an African socialism, Ujamaa.