Theatre
Hawala ya fedha
Not translated into English
Amandina Lihamba · 1980
Synopsis
Hawala ya fedha (The Money Order): adapted from Sembène Ousmane's Le Mandat, the play transposes the story to Tanzania. Ibrahim Chande receives a money order for two thousand shillings sent from London by his student nephew. Unable to keep the news to himself, he sees neighbours and shopkeepers come running, hoping for their share of money that is not his, then comes up against an administration inherited from colonisation.
Context
The play appeared in 1980 in Dar es Salaam from the state publisher, Tanzania Publishing House, in its drama series, and remains in print today. Evan Mwangi sees in it an adaptation that strengthens questions of gender for a popular audience. The author ranks, with Penina Muhando, among the Tanzanian playwrights who draw on the oral tradition, song, dance and storyteller, for a theatre of mobilisation.
Who it is for
For discovering the Swahili theatre of Tanzania through an adaptation of a classic by Sembène; not translated.
Prizes and reception
The play was the subject in 2009 of a study by Evan Mwangi in the review Research in African Literatures.
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