Tanzanian literature

Up to the second half of the 20th century, Tanzanian literature was primarily oral.^[1] Major oral literary forms include folktales, poems, riddles, proverbs, and songs.^[1] The majority of the oral literature in Tanzania that has been recorded is in Swahili, though each of the country's languages has its own oral tradition.^[1] The country's oral literature is currently declining because of social changes that make transmission of oral literature more difficult and because of the devaluation of oral literature that has accompanied Tanzania's development.^[1] Tanzania's written literary tradition has produced relatively few writers and works; Tanzania does not have a strong reading culture, and books are often expensive and hard to come by.^[1] Most Tanzanian literature is orally performed or written in Swahili, and a smaller number of works have been published in English.^[1] Major figures in Tanzanian modern literature include Shaaban Robert, Muhammed Said Abdulla, Aniceti Kitereza, Ebrahim Hussein, Abdulrazak Gurnah and Penina Muhando.^[1]