Ali Hilal Ali reads “Mmeza Fupa” at Soma Cafe, Dar es Salaam.

Ali Hilal Ali had a reading of his novel Mmeza Fupa at the Soma Book Café in Dar es Salaam on July 27, 2019.

Ali Hilal Ali came to the attention of the African literary community when he won the Mabati Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature in 2017. The Tanzanian writer won the most coveted prize in Kiswahili literature with the manuscript Mmeza Fupa. It emerged that the manuscript had already become a novel with the same title published by Mkuki Na Nyota in 2018. The book follows the tribulations of the protagonist Bi Mrisi.

The novelist had a reading for his work at the Soma Book Café in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Saturday, July 27. Soma Book Café was established in 2008 as an alternative public place for leisure, culture, and learning. Housing a bookshop, a coffee and snack bar in a garden lounge; it is a hub for socializing, self-study, group discussions, book launches, art and cultural shows, literary and intellectual discourse; and hosts clubs/classes for creative writing, poetry, bao, chess, scrabble, yoga, and dance.

At the well-attended event were among others Prof Isha Shivji, Prof Mugyabuso Mulokozi, Bwana Shafi Adam Shafi, and Prof Joseph Mbele.