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View an Excerpt (PDF)
Edited and introduced by Fawzia Mustafa
Includes critical essays by Susan A Berger, Marjorie Mbilinyi &
Ulla Vuorela
The Tanganyika Way spans the political events of 1958–1961 that
led to Tanganyika’s independence from Britain. Sophia Mustafa
participated in those events, and her account offers
a rare insider’s perspective of the political drama. She covers
large international and national issues, which, coupled with the
smaller personal details of her life, open a window into
a time and an experience that are emblematic of an unique
historical moment.
We witness close-up one form of the decolonization that marked
mid-twentieth century Africa. An unlikely set of circumstances
led to Mustafa’s political career, and as we learn about them we
also meet the first generation of politicians who helped shape
the nascent nation of Tanzania, including Julius Nyerere, one of
Africa’s most respected and cherished leaders.
This re-issue is accompanied by rare photographs and a series of
short essays that collectively offer historical, familial, and
political contexts of both the author and her work. They include
reminiscences by friends, spanning generations and geographies,
inquiries by scholars theorizing “transnational subjectivity”,
feminist readings of Tanzania’s early years, and
the complex of diaspora/postcoloniality embedded in Sophia
Mustafa’s unusual biography. |
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Sophia Mustafa (1922–2005) was a writer and political
activist of high acclaim. She was one of Tanzania’s first women
members of parliament.
Of South Asian origin, she grew up and lived in East Africa,
where she was active in developing literacy, libraries, and
newspapers in rural areas. She later moved to Canada, where she
took on the career of a novelist, publishing In the Shadow of Kirinyaga.
Her body of published work includes four books of poetry, three
collections of short stories and several award-winning
non-fiction works on Caribbean culture. |
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