Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Narrating Values Describing a World
- 2 Shaaban Robert The Optimism of Writing
- 3 The Crisis of the Bildungsroman
- 4 Euphrase Kezilahabi An Initiatory Realism
- 5 The Political Novel
- 6 Mohamed Suleiman Mohamed Narrating a Dual Reality
- 7 The Criminals & the Corrupted
- 8 Investigations & Enigmas
- 9 Said Ahmed Mohamed The Dark Side of Images
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Investigations & Enigmas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Narrating Values Describing a World
- 2 Shaaban Robert The Optimism of Writing
- 3 The Crisis of the Bildungsroman
- 4 Euphrase Kezilahabi An Initiatory Realism
- 5 The Political Novel
- 6 Mohamed Suleiman Mohamed Narrating a Dual Reality
- 7 The Criminals & the Corrupted
- 8 Investigations & Enigmas
- 9 Said Ahmed Mohamed The Dark Side of Images
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In 1975, an article by the writer Euphrase Kezilahabi was published in the journal Kiswahili condemning the proliferation of the Swahili detective novel. Kezilahabi's main problem with the authors of this genre is that they do not face the problems of Tanzanian society but hide behind the formalism of an abstract investigation. For Kezilahabi this explains why their texts are not very substantial and do not stand up over time:
Why then are detective novels no longer interesting when read for the second time? Their value diminishes because they float above real life and are not deeply rooted in a given society.
(Kezilahabi, 1975b)Kezilahabi's anxiety comes from his commitment to an aesthetics of fiction that takes social problems seriously. The huge social project of Ujamaa is entirely separate from the themes of the detective fiction of the same period. The playwright Ebrahim Hussein also categorically condemns the crime genre as an artificial import which is totally inadequate for any real account of Tanzania's political and social problems (Hussein, 1971). Likewise P. S. Binali concludes his highly critical review of two detective novels by Mohamed Said Abdulla with this comment: ‘All in all, all human beings have flaws and there is no human being who can be good through and through’ (Binali, 1973).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Swahili NovelChallenging the Idea of 'Minor Literature', pp. 142 - 162Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013