The woman hidden in the Diwani ya Mnyampala

Mathias E. Mnyampala (1917-1969) was a great Tanzanian poet, essayist and judge who wrote in Kiswahili more than 25 books. It is a tradition in the Kiswahili poetry world of poets to collect, select and reunite their best verse compositions in a personal magnum opus called Diwani. The Diwani ya Mnyampala has been published in 1963. My field research works from 2007 to 2010 has shown that, alongside Mathias E. Mnyampala's poems contained in his Diwani, another author may appear. Mary Mangwela Mnyampala (Wastara) is a woman poet and the wife of the author. It is not clearly indicated in her spouse's Diwani but she may have written at least five poems inside. This article is an interrogation about the meaning of this woman hidden in the Diwani ya Mnyampala: from an initial and heuristical approach in terms of gender - that will speak to the lack of relevance in this aesthetic field of a victimized woman prejudice or hypothesis - toward a political and aesthetical reflection on East African art and Kiswahili poetry.