Books published by Mkuki na Nyota Publishers

Against the background of the carving's beginnings at Konde in Kisarawe District, Tanzania, which attest to the crucial ties between Zaramo social practices and the carved objects that form an integral part of Zaramo life, The Art of the Zaramo presents the transformations, and reinvention of Zaramo wood sculpture in line with forces of modernization and social change. The book confirms that art represents history, culture and society. To find answers to the author's questions and to develop an understanding of how Zaramo figurative sculpture was transformed as it went through modernization, Fadhili Safieli Mshana compelled to consider the impact of the following: Zaramo multiple ethnic heritage, social norms and cultural patterns including Swahili interactions, the strategic proximity of the Zaramo to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania's biggest city and former capital), influences of Islam and Christian missionaries, colonial history, and finally the socio-economic transformation of post-independence Tanzania. These involve examining the ways that art acts as a vehicle for the formation of individual/group identity; how the two entities negotiate each other in the process of social and cultural change. This excellent book then, is about the Zaramo and their figurative wood carving tradition, and it is written as an attempt to not only understand the origins, development, and centrality of this figural carving tradition to the Zaramo, but also, the ways the Zaramo have used select sculptural objects to interpret change and continuity in the midst of modernization and social change.

"Charles Cantalupo has written a book that crosses all the genres: Where War Was: Poems and Translations from Eritrea is part translation, part reflection, part epic, illustrated with starkly beautiful photographic images by Lawrence Sykes. Cantalupo's poetry recounts his own journey in Eritrea, and his translations of poems by Eritrean writers are authentic and memorable." - Alexandra Dugdale, Editor, Modern Poetry in Translation Charles Cantalupo has two previous collections of poetry - Light the Lights and Animal Woman and Other Spirits. His translations of Eritrean poetry include We Have Our Voice, We Invented the Wheel, and Who Needs a Story, and he has written War and Peace in Contemporary Eritrean Poetry. Distinguished Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and African Studies at Penn State University, he is also the author of books on Thomas Hobbes and Ng¿g¿ wa Thiong'o and a memoir, Joining Africa - From Anthills to Asmara.

Elvis Jaramillo is a poor kid from a shantytown; Julián Restrepo is a rich kid taxi driver dreaming of becoming a rock star; Pamela Oswald the NGO worker from London who becomes fatally intertwined in their lives....In an unnamed Latin American country, society eats itself from the inside. Leila Halabi, a 2nd generation Palestinian immigrant, offers to house Pamela Oswald while she works at a rehabilitation centre for poor kids who are self-harming. But when Oswald discovers that Halabi's previous guest disappeared in unexplained circumstances, she becomes uneasy...Julián Restrepo picks Oswald up from the airport when she arrives in the capital city, Santa Fé, and the two become friends. Restrepo introduces her to the other members of his band: Jhonny Cruz the guitarist, Robert Stone, a cynical English journalist, and Raúl Bontera, a Chilean poet who tells Oswald of a new game he discovered in Colombia: Colombian Roulette - like Russian Roulette without the safety of the empty chambers...In a shantytown in distant Guadalajara, Elvis Jaramillo works alongside a mechanic calling himself the Angolan, a testament to his enslaved African ancestors. The Angolan shows Jaramillo how to make a life and survive. But then one of the Angolan's friends makes an offer Jaramillo can't refuse, and he leaves the only world he knows - a world where violence is the best opportunity going, and safety a luxury for those who can forget the past.How to achieve a lasting peace where human weakness and the political order will not allow it? It soon is clear that accepted truths are built on lies, and every alternative offers a route to disappearance. Restrepo and Oswald embark on a dangerous quest for the truth which brings them and Jaramillo together, in a country where the present implodes as the violence of the past is excavated, and the only war that has yet been declared is against itself.

Mria is a secondary school student who is in love with David, a young man from her neighbourhood. David is a promising law student. Their relationship seems idyllic but is put under strain when David brings up the issue of pre-marital sex. Despite her love and fondness for David, Mria is against it. She has goals in her life, including graduating from secondary school; she refuses because she is afraid of becoming pregnant and being forced to quit school and give up her dreams.

On 20th January 1964, at the Colito Army Barracks just outside Dar es salaam, 15 officers of the Tanganyika Army that was inherited from the colonial state led a mutiny against the independent Tanganyika government. One group went to the State House with the intention of forcing President Julius Nyerere to accept their demands. What would have happened if they had succeeded in entering the State House and if President Nyerere had refused to accept their demands, as he most likely would have done? Anything could have happened and in the worst case scenario Tanzania's history and indeed the history of the whole of Africa would have been seriously affected. This book is about the courage and quick thinking of Peter Bwimbo, the then head of the Presidential Protection Unit and Nyerere's Chief Body Guard who, alone, planned and executed an ingenious and successful evacuation of President Nyerere and Vice President Rashid Kawawa, whisking them away from the State House before the mutineers got there. By a clever ruse he convinced the ferry operators on duty before dawn to ferry them across the Kigamboni Creek. From there they walked several miles to a hiding place in a house that was offered by an ordinary citizen and where they stayed until the situation was normalised several days later.

In Growing up with Tanzania. Karim Hirji, a renowned Professor of Medical Statistics and Fellow of the Tanzania Academy of Science, presents a multi-faceted, evocative portrait of his joyous but conflicted passage to adulthood during colonial and early-Uhuru Tanzania. His smooth style engages the reader with absorbing true tales, cultural currents, critical commentary and progressive possibilities. By vibrantly contrasting the hope-filled sixties with the cynical modern era, he also lays bare the paradoxes of personal life and society, past and present.

Pat Caplan is a social anthropologist who began doing research on Mafia Island for her Ph.D. in the 1960s when Mikidadi and his relatives made her part of their family . She has continued to revisit the island periodically since then and has published several books and written many articles based on her research. Her books include 'African Voices, African Lives' and she has also made a film about Kanga village: Life on Mafia Island (www.youtube.com) with a Swahili version 'Maisha ya Watu Kisiwani Mafia'. In addition, she maintains a web site about Mafia: www.mafia-island-tanzania.gold.ac.uk which includes a historical photo gallery. Pat Caplan is retired from full-time teaching, but still gives lectures and conference papers, carries out research and publishes. She also enjoys her five grandchildren. The book:  The idea for this book has grown out of an engagement with Mafia Island, Tanzania over the last forty-five years, during which time I have made seven research trips there, and published numerous articles and books. Some people on the island have become close friends, indeed quasi-kin, and I have been closely involved in their lives. One such person, whom I knew when he was an adolescent back in 1965, was Mikidadi Kichange, who treated me as his older sister for all the years of our friendship, until his untimely death in 2002. Apart from our meetings when I was in Tanzania, he shared through regular letters his education, training in forestry, national service, marriage and the birth of two daughters, the care of many children of relatives, his employment and his founding of an NGO for the betterment of the island. Although Mikidadi never managed to return to full-time education as he had wished, he read widely in Swahili, English and Arabic. By the time of our last meeting in the summer of 2002, when we worked together for several months on Mafia, he had become a colleague and interlocutor, as well as a 'younger brother' and friend. Since his unexpected death in the autumn of 2002 at the age of 49 I have considered how he might be remembered by the writing of a book about his life which would also illustrate the profound changes which have taken place on Mafia Island, and in Tanzania more widely since independence. I would call this work biographical history, as well as historical biography in which the lives of ordinary people reveal their struggles, constraints, and, as in this case, an extraordinary ability to overcome their circumstances.

Yes, In My Lifetime is a collection of selected articles and essays by Haroub Othman, written over the span of his career of nearly four decades. Originally appearing in a wide range of fora, the writings reflect Othman's growth as an intellectual and an activist. They also encapsulate his life's passions - the plight of the people and their struggles for their rights, the state of the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, and international solidarity with the oppressed the world over. A child of Zanzibar, Othman fought long and hard for the unity of those islands, and for their continued presence in the Union, and the set of articles in that section pay homage to that work. Haroub Othman was a professor of development studies at the University of Dar es Salaam, having specialised in international law and political science. He was still working with the University when he passed away in 2009. His many Kiswahili writings are unfortunately not included in this book.

4 CITIES, 4 LIVES, 1 CRIME, In Madrid, an Argentinian bookseller gets caught up in the scheme of an American professor to prevent an appalling crime. Her sidekicks soon include a Gambian migrant in Paris and a Spanish waitress in London. Seeking some sort of companionship in their exiles, the four characters join forces in a quest that becomes a dangerous obsession. All four lives seem to be fatefully connected. But how to get people to take the crime seriously if it does not yet exist? In Buenos Aires, the criminals are remorselessly pursued. They cross paths with a Nigerian judge, the wife of one of General Franco,s thugs, a caretaker to the wealthy, and Peter Halbtsen, an expert in Chinese culture. It is early March 2004. Halbtsen has spent years deciphering a book which may hold the key to the mystery. But where is the crime? Who is the criminal? And can anything be done to prevent humanity from reaping the whirlwind?

Many of us may live our lives without ever stopping to think "What if I couldn't see?" We hardly ever ask ourselves this question because, to say the least, we take or eyes for granted. I, like most people, had never thought about it until 11th January 2008. My mother came to wake me up that morning and asked what I was still doing in bed and confidently I replied, "It is still dark outside Mum". She told me it was 8am and the sun was shining bright (a typical African morning!). I rubbed my eyes, opened them wider and yelled out, "I can't see! I can't see!" That was the beginning of a long journey through darkness.

Nancy slaps palms with her friends and laughs a lot. She wears bell-bottom pants which swing when she walks through Uhuru Gardens. Nancy will finish secondary school this year, but she doesn't really know what will happen to her after that. Deo reads seriously, but he also spends many evenings in bars. He works in a factory laboratory, where his Form VI education elevates him above the other workers. He knows that there are some "big men" who live off the sweat of the others at the factory; it isn't right, but what does a lone youth do about it? Deo also wants to marry Nancy. Magege, the manager of 'Mountain Goat Rubber Factory', has the means to fulfill all his personal wants-including his taste for young girls. Nancy's mother, Maria, has no private means except selling her own body and her dream of a better life for her daughter. The Wicked Walk swirls around the lives of these four, set on a backdrop of workers' struggles and the rhythm of Dar es Salaam as city dwellers, and especially youths, know it. In this searingly honest, and at times poignant, novel the author raises important questions about the position of women in society, the causes of prostitution, corrupt and inefficient managers, and the groupings of youth who struggle towards ideological clarity as they attempt to understand their society.

Hopolang was sexually abused by a neighbor and for nineteen years she didnit divulge her experience because she feared that she would be blamed. In the first edition of eJoy Comes in the Morningi she shared her battle to regain her self-confidence and self-esteem by running into the arms of the One who can heal - God. Through poems, she expresses emotions, such as confusion, pain, fear, betrayal, guilt, regret, approval, self-pity, mistrust and forgiveness that she had to work through. In this revised edition of eJoy Comes in the Morningi, Hopolang recounts how she overcame, not only the trauma of being sexually abused but also other challenges, such as working through relationships and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro- something that she never imagined she could accomplish. As she narrates her experiences, her hope is that the lessons she learned will motivate and inspire her readers. No matter how difficult the circumstances are that we encounter in our lives, we can triumph, and joy always comes in the morning. As she walked the paths of recovery from sexual abuse, Hopolang Phororo longed to read stories she could relate to, of those who had suffered abuse and overcame it. Because such stories were not available, she decided to share her story, to reach out and inspire other women with the message that there is hope. Her passion to see young women realize their fullest potential has led her to set up the Daughters of Destiny (DoD) Ministry (mentoring young women), in countries where she has lived.