Tale
Swahili Tales, as Told by Natives of Zanzibar
Edward Steere · 1870
Synopsis
Sungura the hare tricks the lion, the elephant and the hyena, a sultan sets riddles to his daughters, and young men set out to look for something that does not exist and bring it back all the same. The collection thus mixes the animal tales of the coast with stories from the Arab world, each given in Swahili alongside its English translation.
Context
The collection appeared in London in 1870, published by Bell and Daldy, with the Swahili text and an English translation on facing pages, the tales having been gathered from Zanzibari storytellers, several of them freed slaves of the mission. Swahili was then written in Arabic script on this coast; the missionary transcribed it into Latin script, and his spelling prepared the one that is now official in Tanzania and Kenya. The same man published in the same year a handbook of the language as it was spoken in Zanzibar, and had a press installed on the island.
Who it is for
Short tales in a bilingual edition. Steere's Swahili is that of Zanzibar, the basis of present-day standard Swahili.
Prizes and reception
The first collection of Swahili tales to be printed, it fixes the figure of the hare Sungura and remains a source for studies of oral literature.