Swahili literature, broadly defined as that body of verbal art originally composed in the Swahili language, is a product of what Ali Mazrui (1986) has termed Africa’s triple heritage. It emerged out of a confluence of three forces: the indigenous tradition, the Islamic legacy, and the western impact. The indigenous contribution has, of course, featured primarily in the realm of orature; but, over the years, it has continued to affect the destiny of Swahili written literature that is the focus of this chapter. One must also bear in mind that the boundary between what is written and what is oral in the various genres of Swahili literature is not always easy to determine.

With regard to the interaction between the Arab-Islamic and indigenous factors, in particular, the general tendency, until relatively recently, was to privilege the former (usually seen as the “donor”) over the latter (regarded as the “recipient”) to a point where it has supposedly lost its local identity. But as Rajmund Ohly observes, “The overlapping of these two cultures – the local, Bantu and the Oriental – took place on the basis of mutual adjustment and not, as has been thought until now, on the basis of assimilation, so that a two tiered development of literature can be observed which embraces both the pure elements of Bantu folk culture and the inflowing Muslim-Oriental elements” (1985: 461). In fact, the so-called layers became integrated into a new organic synthesis and, in time, fused with other influences reflecting, among others things, the tensions between town and country, and between “gentry” and “commoner.”