`Nyoko-Nyoko`: an unpublished short story by Saad Yahyai

• Main Author: Bertoncini-Zúbková, Elena
• Other Authors: University of Naples `L`Orientale`, DSRAPA
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig 2012
• Subjects: Swahili; Kurzgeschichte; Afrikanische Literatur; Saad Yahya; Sansibar; short story; african literature; Zanzibar; ddc:496; Außereuropäische Literatur
• Online Access: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-91601; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-91601; http://www.qucosa.de/fileadmin/data/qucosa/documents/9160/8_09_bertoncini.pdf

Saad Yahya, born in Zanzibar in 1939, studied architecture and town planning in Great Britain and in Canada; since 1968 he has lectured at the University of Nairobi. He portrays everyday life of typical inhabitants of Zanzibar and Nairobi, displaying a penetrating understanding of their problems and of their state of mind, linked with a remarkable stylistic ability. He is an acute observer who presents his characters with humour and irony, but also with a profound insight. Furthermore, in his stories, under the surface of everyday activities there is always some hidden antagonism or passion, never spelled out, but only alluded to. Several years ago Yahya sent me the manuscript of two other stories which I hoped to translate and publish in Italy, but ultimately it was not possible. I have included one of them, called Nyoko-nyoko and consisting in five typewritten pages, in the syllabus of my literary courses in Naples and in Paris. It is a rare - if not unique - Swahili story in which the main character is a Mzungu, a white man: the British governor of an imaginary East-Aftican country called Nyalia, who has to abandon his post suddenly for unspecified reasons. He regrets to must leave the country he has learned to know and to like; however, behind the mask of liberality and tolerance is hidden a self-conceited racist. The story describes his last day in Africa after a long stay.