Muhammed Said Abdulla


Muhammed Said Abdulla or Abdullah, was a Tanzanian Swahili novelist who is often credited as a pioneer of Swahili popular literature.

Life

Muhammed Said Abdulla was born in Makunduchi, Zanzibar to a Muslim family. He received his secondary education at a missionary school, and after graduating in 1938, began working for the state Civil Health Department as an inspector. While there he served as editor for the Department of Agriculture's Swahili Bulletin. Abdulla went into journalism; in 1948 he becoming editor of the newspaper Zanzibari. He later became assistant editor of Al-Falaq, Afrika Kwetu, and Al Mahda. From 1958 to his retirement in 1968 he served as editor of the agricultural magazine Mkulima.
In 1958 fiction work Mzimu wa Watu wa Kale won top honors at the Swahili Story-Writing Competition held by the East African Literature Bureau; in 1960 the work was published as a novel. The novel was noted for breaking away from folktale traditions that were popular in Swahili literature at the time. Mzimu wa Watu wa Kale marked the first appearance of Bwana Msa, a detective character that features in most of his subsequent works. The plots of Abdulla's later novels became progressively more and more complex and sophisticated. These plots usually involved a protagonist who must battle ignorance and superstition in order to resolve the conflict.

Works