Aniceti Kitereza: A Tanzanian Epic

"Words that are spoken fly like the wind. Words that are written live forever."

Aniceti Kitereza spoke those words while telling Gerald (Jerry) and Charlotte (Shoonie) Hartwig the story of his novel. The year was 1969. They couldn't have imagined that this conversation would inaugurate an eleven-year saga, one of determination and commitment revealed in a significant collection of letters and the extraordinary tale of a man and a book.

The book you are holding is the story of this Tanzanian epic in words written and life lived. Aniceti Kitereza completed his epic novel in Kikerebe, in early 1945 and later translated it into Swahili as, Bwana Myombekere na Bibi Bugonoka na Ntulanalwo na Bulihwali (Tanzania Publishing House, 1980), and which was later superbly translated from the Kikerebe original into English by Prof. Gabriel Ruhumbika under the title of, Mr Myombekere and His Wife Bugonoka, their Son Ntulanalwo and Daughter Bulihwali; The story of an Ancient African Community (Mkuki na Nyota, 2000).

Within this book, Aniceti Kitereza - A Tanzanian Epic, Shoonie Hartwig tells the story of this epic man and his epic writing. There are two hundred and fourteen letters exchanged between Kitereza, Richard Markham, publisher at Heinemann in Nairobi, Kenya; John Allen, translator in Arusha, Tanzania; Jerry and Shoonie Hartwig in Durham, North Carolina; Emilie Larson, friend, in Boston, Massachusetts. This book is a significant episode in the history of writing, publishing and literature in Tanzania. It shows the fate that awaited writers in the colonial period, and at multinational publishing companies in the post-independence period. But it also proves the power of friendship and love of literature that kept the dream of seeing the book in print alive, and the commitment of Tanzania Publishing House and Mkuki na Nyota to realise the dream.