Books in English on Swahili Culture, History, Literature, and Politics
***Note: For works in Kiswahili, see Swahili Language and Culture Acquisitions at Columbia
- Abdilatif Abdalla : poet in politics. Edited by Rose Marie Beck & Kai Kresse. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania : Mkuki na Nyota Publishers Ltd, [2016] (147 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Allen, J. de V. Lamu town : a guide. 2nd ed. [Lamu, Kenya] : Allen, 1986. (41 p.)
- Allen, J. de Vere. Swahili origins : Swahili culture & the Shungwaya phenomenon. London : J. Currey ; Nairobi : East African Educational Publishers ; Athens : Ohio University Press, 1993. (272 p.)
- Alpers, Edward A. East Africa and the Indian Ocean. Princeton, NJ : Markus Wiener Publishers, c2009. (242 p.)
- An Azanian trio : three East African Arabic historical documents. Translated and edited by James McL. Ritchie, Sigvard von Sicard. Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2020]
--See also: E-book
- Bang, Anne K. Islamic Sufi networks in the western Indian Ocean (c. 1880-1940) : ripples of reform. Leiden : Brill, [2014] (227 p.)
- Bang, Anne K. Sufis and scholars of the sea : family networks in East Africa, 1860-1925. London ; New York : Routledge, Curzon, 2003. (260 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Barwani, Sauda and Ludwig Gerhardt. Life and poems of Bi Zainab Himid (1920-2002) : in Swahili with English translation = Maisha na Tungo za Bi Zainab Himid (1920-2002) : kwa Kiswahili na tafsiri yake kwa Kiingereza. Köln : Köppe, 2012. (331 p.)
- Bennett, Norman Robert. A history of the Arab State of Zanzibar. London : Methuen : distributed by Harper & Row Publishers, 1978. (304 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Biersteker, Ann Joyce. Kujibizana : questions of language and power in nineteenth- and twentieth-century poetry in Kiswahili. East Lansing, Mich. : Michigan State University Press, 1995. (367 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Biersteker, Ann Joyce. The significance of the Swahili literary tradition and interpretation of early twentieth-century political poetry. Boston, Mass. : African Studies Center, Boston University, 1990.
(28 leaves)
- Bissell, William Cunningham. Urban design, chaos, and colonial power in Zanzibar. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c2011. (378 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Bwenge, Charles. The tongue between : Swahili & English in Tanzanian parliamentary discourse. München : Lincom Europa, 2010. (100 p.)
- Caplan, Patricia. African voices, African lives : personal narratives from a Swahili village. London ; New York : Routledge, 1997. (267 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Caplan, Patricia. Choice and constraint in a Swahili community : property, hierachy, and cognatic descent on the East African coast. London ; New York : Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press, 1975. (162 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Chimerah, Rocha M. Kiswahili : past, present and future horizons. Nairobi, Kenya : Nairobi University Press, 1998. (152 p.)
- Chittick, H. Neville. Kilwa : an Islamic trading city on the East African coast.. 2 vols. Nairobi : British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1974.
- Chittick, H. Neville. Manda : excavations at an island port on the Kenya coast. Nairobi : British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1984. (258 p.)
- Contesting identities : the Mijikenda and their neighbors in Kenyan coastal society. Edited by Rebecca Gearhart and Linda Giles. Trenton, N.J. : Africa World Press, c2014. (308 p.)
- Cooper, Frederick. From slaves to squatters : plantation labor and agriculture in Zanzibar and coastal Kenya, 1890-1925. Portsmouth, N.H. : Heinemann, 1980. (328 p.)
--See also: 1997 ed.
- Cooper, Frederick. On the African waterfront : urban disorder and the transformation of work in colonial Mombasa. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1987. (290 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Cooper, Frederick. Plantation slavery on the east coast of Africa. New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, 1977. (314 p.)
- Dar es Salaam : histories from an emerging African metropolis. Edited by James R. Brennan, Andrew Burton, and Yusef Lawi. Dar es Salaam : Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, in association with the British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi ; East Lansing, MI, USA : Distributed in North America by Michigan State University Press, 2007. (279 p.)
--See also: E-book
- El-Zein, Abdul Hamid M. Sacred meadows : a structural analysis of religious symbolism in an east African town. [Evanston, Ill.] : Northwestern University Press, 1974. (365 p.)
--See also: Offsite copy
- Fabian, Steven. Making identity on the Swahili coast : urban life, community, and belonging in Bagamoyo. New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2019. (343 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Fair, Laura. Pastimes and politics : culture, community, and identity in post-abolition urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945. Athens [Ohio] : Ohio University Press ; Oxford [England] : James Currey, 2001. (370 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. (compiler). The East African coast; select documents from the first to the earlier nineteenth century. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1962. (314 p.)
- Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. The Swahili coast, 2nd to 19th centuries : Islam, Christianity and commerce in Eastern Africa. London : Variorum Reprints, 1988. (273 p.)
- Gendered lives in the Western Indian Ocean : Islam, marriage, and sexuality on the Swahili Coast. Edited by Erin E. Stiles and Katrina Daly Thompson. Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, [2015]
(406 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Ghaidan, Usam. Lamu : a study of the Swahili town. Nairobi : East African Literature Bureau, 1975. (94 p.)
- Glassman, Jonathon. Feasts and riot : revelry, rebellion, and popular consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-1888. Portsmouth, NH : Heinemann, 1995. (293 p.)
--See also: E-book
- The global worlds of the Swahili : interfaces of Islam, identity and space in 19th and 20th-century East Africa. Edited by Roman Loimeier, Rüdiger Seesemann Berlin, Germany : Lit, c2006.
(409 p.)
- Hashim, Nadra O. Language and collective mobilization : the story of Zanzibar. Lanham : Lexington Books, c2009. (259 p.)
- Hirji, Karim F. Growing up with Tanzania : memories, musings and maths. Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania : Mkuki Na Nyota Publishers, 2014. (284 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Hirsch, Susan F. Pronouncing & persevering : gender and discourses of disputing in an African Islamic court. Language and legal discourse. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1998. (360 p.)
- The history & conservation of Zanzibar Stone Town. Edited by Abdul Sheriff. London : J. Currey ; Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 1995. (151 p.)
- Hopper, Matthew S. Slaves of one master : globalization and slavery in Arabia in the age of empire. New Haven : Yale University Press [2015] (302 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Horton, Mark. Shanga : the archaeology of a Muslim trading community on the coast of East Africa. London : The British Institute in Eastern Africa, c1996. (458 p.)
- Horton, Mark and John Middleton. The Swahili : the social landscape of a mercantile society.. Oxford, UK ; Malden, Mass. : Blackwell Publishers, 2000. (282 p.)
- The Indian Ocean : ocean connections and the creation of new societies. Edited by Abdul Sheriff and Engseng Ho. London : Hurst & Company, 2014. (307 p.)
- Indian Ocean slavery in the age of abolition. Edited by Robert Harms, Bernard K. Freamon, and David W. Blight. New Haven : Yale University Press, [2013] (253 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Jafferji, Javed, photographer. Zanzibar : photographic journey : 50 years of the revolution. Text, Ahmed Rajab, Jessica Trappe, Ismail Jussa and Caroline Lewis. Zanzibar : Gallery Publication, 2014.
(316 p.)
- Kenya coast handbook : culture, resources and development in the East African littoral. Edited by Jan Hoorweg, Dick Foeken, R.A. Obudho. Münster : Lit, [2000] (527 p.)
- Khamisi, Joe. Dash before dusk : a slave descendant's journey in freedom. Nairobi, Kenya : Kenway Publications, 2014. (265 p.)
- Knappert, Jan. Four centuries of Swahili verse : a literary history and anthology. London : Heinemann Educational, 1979. (323 p.)
--See also: Burke copy
- Knappert, Jan. A survey of Swahili Islamic epic sagas. Lewiston : Edwin Mellen Press, c1999. (169 p.)
- Knappert, Jan. Traditional Swahili poetry : an investigation into the concepts of East African Islam as reflected in the Utenzi literature. Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1967. (272 p.)
--See also: Offsite copy
- Kresse, Kai. Philosophising in Mombasa : knowledge, Islam and intellectual practice on the Swahili coast. Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, c2007.
(288 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Kresse, Kai. Swahili Muslim publics and postcolonial experience. Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2018] (237 p.)
- Kusimba, Chapurukha Makokha. The rise and fall of Swahili states. Walnut Creek, California : AltaMira Press, c1999. (236 p.)
- Kusimba, Chapurukha Makokha. Swahili worlds in globalism. E-book. Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2023. (98 p.)
- Loimeier, Roman. Between social skills and marketable skills : the politics of Islamic education in 20th century Zanzibar. Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2009. (643 p.)
- Maitland-Jones, J. The Old Town, Mombasa : a historical guide. Compiled from the original notes of J. McCrae by J. Maitland-Jones, J. Aldrick, and R. Macdonald. Mombasa : Friends of Fort Jesus, [1985]
(35 p.)
- Massamba, David Phineas Bhukanda. Kiswahili origins and the Bantu divergence-convergence theory. Dar es Salaam : Institute of Kiswahili Research, University of Dar es Salaam, 2007.
(116 p.)
- Mazrui, Al-Amin Bin Ali. The history of the Mazruʻi dynasty of Mombasa = Tārīkh al-Mazāriʻah. Translated from Arabic to English and annotated by J. McL. Ritchie. Oxford ; New York : Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, c1995. (248 p.)
- Mazrui, Alamin M. Swahili beyond the boundaries : literature, language, and identity. Research in international studies. Africa series ; no. 85. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2007. (206 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Mazrui, Alamin M. and Ibrahim Noor Shariff. The Swahili : idiom and identity of an African people. Trenton, N.J. : Africa World Press, 1994. (188 p.)
- Mazrui, Ali Al'Amin and Alamin M. Mazrui. Swahili state and society : the political economy of an African language. Nairobi : East African Educational Publishers ; London : James Currey, 1995.
(171 p. )
- Mbaabu, Ireri. New horizons in Kiswahili : a synthesis in developments, research, and literature. Nairobi : Kenya Literature Bureau, 1985. (229 p.)
- Meier, Prita. Swahili port cities : the architecture of elsewhere. Bloomington ; Indianapolis : Indiana University Press, [2016] (230 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Mghanga, Mwandawiro. Usipoziba ufa utajenga ukuta : land, elections, and conflicts in Kenya's Coast Province. Nairobi, Kenya : Heinrich Böll Stiftung, c2010. (107 p.)
- Middleton, John. African merchants of the Indian Ocean: Swahili of the East African Coast. Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press, c2004. (134 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Middleton, John. The world of the Swahili : an African mercantile civilization. New Haven, CT ; London : Yale University Press, 1992. (254 p.)
- Morton, Fred. Children of Ham : freed slaves and fugitive slaves on the Kenya coast, 1873 to 1907. Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, 1990. (241 p.)
- Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari. The customs of the Swahili people : the Desturi za Waswahili of Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari and other Swahili persons. Edited and translated into English by J.W.T. Allen. Berkeley, California : University of California Press, c1981. (342 p.)
--See also: Offsite copy
- Mugane, John M. The story of Swahili. Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, in association with the Ohio University Center for International Studies, [2015]. (324 p.)
--See also: Ohio Open Library e-book ; EBSCO e-book
- Nicolini, Beatrice. Makran, Oman, and Zanzibar : three-terminal cultural corridor in the western Indian Ocean, 1799-1856. Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2004. (179 p.)
--See also: 2012 edition
- Nurse, Derek and Thomas J. Hinnesbusch. Swahili and Sabaki : a linguistic history. (With special addendum by Gerard Philippson.) Berkeley, California ; London : University of California Press, 1993.
(780 p.)
- Nurse, Derek and Thomas Spear. The Swahili : reconstructing the history and language of an African society, 800-1500. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1984. (133 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Ohly, Rajmund. The Zanzibarian challenge : Swahili prose in the years 1975-1981. Windhoek, Namibia : The Academy, c1990. (186 p.)
- Pearson, Michael N. Port cities and intruders : the Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal in the early modern era. Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. (202 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Pollard, Edward John David. The archaeology of Tanzanian coastal landscapes in the 6th to 15th centuries AD : the Middle Iron Age of the region. Oxford : Archaeopress, 2008. (367 p.)
- Pouwels, Randall Lee. Horn and crescent : cultural change and traditional Islam on the East African coast, 800-1900. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1987.
(273 p.)
- Prestholdt, Jeremy. Domesticating the world : African consumerism and the genealogies of globalization. Berkeley : University of California Press, c2008. (273 p.)
--See also: UC Scholarship E-book ; or, Proquest E-book
- Prins, A. H. J. The Swahili-speaking peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast: Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili. London, International African Institute, 1967. (146 p.)
--See also: 1961 edition
- Reimagining Indian Ocean worlds. E-book. Edited by Smriti Srinivas, Bettina Ng'weno, and Neelima Jeychandran. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2020]
- Rollins, Jack D. A history of Swahili prose. Leiden : E.J. Brill, 1983- (Vol. 1.)
- Romero, Patricia W. Lamu : history, society, and family in an East African port city. Princeton, NJ : Markus Wiener, c1997. (310 p.)
- Roy-Campbell, Zaline M. Empowerment through language : the African experience-- Tanzania and beyond. Trenton, NJ ; Asmara, Eritrea : Africa World Press, 2001. (223 p.)
- Ruete, Emilie. [Salme, princess of Omar and Zanzibar] Memoirs of an Arabian princess from Zanzibar. New York : M. Wiener Pub., 1989. (298 p.)
--See also: E-book of 1888 edition -or- 1907 edition in plain text
- Russell, Joan. Communicative competence in a minority group : a sociolinguistic study of the Swahili-speaking community in the old town, Mombasa. Leiden : Brill, 1981. (262 p.)
- Saavedra Casco, José Arturo. Utenzi, war poems, and the German conquest of East Africa : Swahili poetry as a historical source. Trenton NJ : Africa World Press, c2007. (323 p.)
- Salim, A. I. The Swahili-speaking peoples of Kenya's coast, 1895-1965. [Nairobi] : East African Pub. House [1973] (272 p.)
- Sellström, Tor. Africa in the Indian Ocean : islands in ebb and flow. Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2015] (385 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Sheriff, Abdul. Dhow cultures of the Indian Ocean : cosmopolitanism, commerce and Islam. New York : Columbia University Press, c2010. (351 p.)
- Sheriff, Abdul. Slaves, spices & ivory in Zanzibar : integration of an East African commercial empire into the world economy, 1770-1873. London : Currey ; Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 1987.
(297 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Siravo, Francesco. Zanzibar : a plan for the historic stone town. Geneva, Switzerland : Aga Khan Trust for Culture, c1996. (218 p.)
- Social memory, silenced voices, and political struggle : remembering the revolution in Zanzibar. Edited by William Cunningham Bissell, Marie-Aude Fouere. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania : Mkuki na Nyota Publishers Ltd in association with French Institute for Research in Africa, [2018]. (385 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Southern Africa and the Swahili world. Edited by Felix Chami and Gilbert Pwiti. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania : Dar es Salaam University Press, 2002. (138 p.)
- Stockreiter, Elke. Islamic law, gender, and social change in post-abolition Zanzibar. New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2015. (279 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Strobel, Margaret. Muslim women in Mombasa, 1890-1975. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1979. (258 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Struggling with history : Islam and cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean. Edited by Edward Simpson & Kai Kresse,
New York : Columbia University Press, c2008. (377 p.)
- Swahili language and society : papers from the workshop held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in April 1982. Edited by Joan Maw and David Parkin. Wien : Institut für Afrikanistik, 1985.
(348 p.)
- Swahili modernities : culture, politics, and identity on the east coast of Africa. Edited by Pat Caplan and Farouk Topan. Trenton, N.J. ; Asmara, Eritrea : Africa World Press, 2004. (235 p.) Papers from a two day conference held in London, 2001.
- The Swahili world. Edited by Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Adria LaViolette. Abindgon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. (671 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Swartz, Marc J. The way the world is : cultural processes and social relations among the Mombasa Swahili. Berkeley, California : University of California Press, c1991. (350 p.)
- Three Swahili women : life histories from Mombasa, Kenya. Edited and translated by Sarah Mirza and Margaret Strobel. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1989. (157 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Vamps and victims : women in Swahili literature. Edited by Elena Bertoncini- Zubkova. Koln : Rudiger Koppe Verlag ; c1996. (314 p.)
- Walker, Iain. Islands in a cosmopolitan sea : a history of the Comoros. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]
--See also: E-book
- Walshaw, Sarah. Swahili urbanisation, trade and food production : botanical perspectives from Pemba Island, Tanzania, AD 600-1500. Oxford, England : Archaeopress, publishers of British Archaeological Reports, 2015. (126 p.)
- Wamitila, K. W. Archetypal criticism of Kiswahili poetry. Bayreuth : Bayreuth University ; London : Global, 2001. (245 p).
- The Western Indian Ocean : essays on islands and islanders. Edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa. Port Louis, Mauritius : Hassan Toorawa Trust, c2007. (154 p.)
- Wilson, Amrit. The threat of liberation : imperialism and revolution in Zanzibar. London : Pluto Press, 2013. (175 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Wynne-Jones, Stephanie. A material culture : consumption and materiality on the coast of precolonial East Africa. Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press 2016. (232 p.)
- The Zanzibar Protectorate law reports. 8 vols. Nairobi, Kenya : LawAfrica, [2009?]
- Zanzibar under colonial rule. Edited by Abdul Sheriff & Ed Ferguson. London : J. Currey ; Nairobi : Heinemann ; Dar es Salaam : Historical Association of Tanzania ; Athens : Ohio University Press, 1991.
(278 p.)
--See also: E-book
- Zawawi, Sharifa. Kanga: the cloth that speaks. The Bronx, N.Y.: Azaniya Hills Press, c2005. (128 p.)
- World on the horizon : Swahili arts across the Indian Ocean. Curated and edited by Prita Meier and Allyson Purpura. Champaign, Illinois : Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion, [2018]. (384 p.)