Burt Award Books
Close Calls
2011 Burt Award for African Literature - 1st place
Close Calls is the story about Bahati - a disciplined, obedient and hardworking girl. Things begin to change when she gets involved with bad company. Her new friend, Sophia thinks that life is about enjoyment and uses her charms and looks to find men, who are older and have money to spend on her.
Bahati’s life becomes a big mess and results in great consequences in her life including getting pregnant, losing her father and being infected with HIV.
This story talks about how peer pressure can have an impact on the lives of the young people. It also shows how rigid strictness and less communication between parents and children can a ect the lives of the children. The disadvantages of contemporary communication such as mobile phones and Internet has been clearly portrayed in this story.
Author: Tune S. Salim has published several textbooks for Primary School Children in Tanzania. Close Calls is her first novel. She lives in Dar es Salaam with her lovely children.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Lessilie - the City Maasai
2011 Burt Award for African Literature - 2nd place
Lessilie - the City Maasai is the story of a young Maasai boy growing up outside his community. His father, a Maasai marries a Kikuyu woman from Kenya, which results in his rejection by his people.
Lessilie’s journey from the city to the world of the Maasai starts when his father passes away. Will he be able to live like the Maasai? Can he prove that he really can be a warrior like his father? His adventure teaches him more about life than he ever imagined. He not only learns to read animal tracks but realizes the great power within himself.
This book touches on aspects of the challenges faced by the Maasai, and the threat from the fading of their culture, in this new era.
Author: Nahida Esmail has published several children’s books titled, Mahmood My Hero, I am Bakari, I am Musa and Living in the Shade, for which she won the 2nd Burt Award. Ahmed and the Monkey and Rina - the grey Rhinoceros are her two other new books to be published by Oxford University Press (T) Ltd.
When not writing, she is busy with her two children and her photography.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
The Choice
2011 Burt Award for African Literature - 3rd place
Mria's heart is longing for David's affection but she doesn’t know how to express her love for him. She doesn't know either the reasons why she loves him and what she is supposed to do with those feelings. David thinks Mria is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen in his life; he feels she is part of him. He wants Mria to be his. The two have different opinions on what love is and what is supposed to be done to show real love. Th ey are in relationship. David is not given the thing his friends and colleagues get from their girlfriends. David becomes impatient, one day he dares to make a request, a request which turn to be catastrophic to their lives. They all find themselves in the biggest challenge to overcome the catastrophe as well as to concentrate on their studies since both of them are still students.
The Choice poses a very fascinating question to young lovers probably many of them never thought about. Is the real duty of love is sorrow? Is that true that the only precious gift can a lover always brings to a partner is sufferings?
The Choice has those answers as almost everyone in adolescence is moving towards or away for what is thought to be love.
Author: Juma Mwamgwirani Mwakimatu is an emerging young author who is proving to be ‘old’ for his age.
Publisher: Mkuki Na Nyota
Face Under the Sea, by W.E.Mkufya
2010 Burt Award for African Literature - 1st place
In this fable, Naima and Rahima are twins. Their father is a poor fisherman in an island on the Indian Ocean. One day they went to the seashore and discovered a strange coloured fish trapped in a pond after the tide had gone. The fish popped out of the pond and said, “Please take me back to the ocean.”
The twins shuddered with fear. But Rahima was courageous. She took the fist back to the ocean and from then on started their adventure with strange creatures of a small island who wanted the twins to search for a face carved on a rock, which was buried under the sea. Reading through this fabulous adventure narrated in a simple readable and exciting prose, you will meet a talking parrot, dolphin, mermaid, a wise old tortoise and wise men who, while guiding the twins on how to find the mysterious face under the sea, also tell them something about what happiness is and the best way to achie3ve it, not only for human beings but for all creatures on earth.
Author: W.E.Mkufya. Mr. Mkufya has written several adult novels and children’s books in Swahili. This is his third novel in English.
Publisher: Mangrove Publishers
Living in the Shade, by Nahida Esmail
2010 Burt Award for African Literature - 2nd place
Tatu is a young albino girl from the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Living in a society that is ignorant about albinism, Tatu endures tremendous hardship. Cultural belief and superstition lead people around Tatu to believe that she has a disease and supernatural powers. At school, she is treated unfairly and is ignored and shunned by the neighbourhood.
Superstitious beliefs mean that Tatu’s life is in constant danger. She is oblivious to the gang lurking around, waiting to pounce and kidnap her and other albinos only to be sold to witchdoctors. This book touches on aspects of the causes of albinism and how educating a society can change people’s mindsets.
Author: Nahida Esmail. Ms. Esmail has published three children’s books. When not writing, she is busy with her 3-year old daughter and her photography.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, http://oup.co.tz/
In the belly of dar es salaam, by Elieshi Lema
2010 Burt Award for African Literature - 3rd place
Sara came to Dar es Salaam from Same in a spirit of adventure. She stayed and lived in the streets. In the Belly of Dar es Salaam is a story of Sara and other dwellers of the streets, Mansa from Kibaha, Ali from Lushoto and Kaleb from Mtwara. They have all come to Dar es Salaam to escape rural poverty in Dar es Salaam, sleeping on pavements and in crowded dilapidated rooms. They walk and work on the streets in the hot sun. They live for one purpose only: Kutafutta maisha, to survive. This is a story of their lives and their struggles, their dreams and ambitions.
Author: Elieshi Lema. Elieshi Lema is a author of several books for youth and adults. She is also the former Executive Secretary of the Children’s Book Project.
Publisher: E & D Vision Publishing http://www.edvisionpublishing.co.tz/
Treeland: the Land of Laughter, by Mkama MwijarubiAugust 10, 2009 - CODE anounced the first winners of its inaugural Burt Award for African Literature in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
1st place - $12,000 CAD to Mkama Mwijarubi for Treeland: the Land of Laughter
Treeland is an imaginary land in an imaginary era. It is populated by a jolly people that love two things above everything else: laughter and trees, hence, Treeland: The Land of Laughter. As Treeland’s warrior King Majabe nears 100 years and despite his smiling and laughing face, he is worried for not having a male heir. He has a willful, assertive, charming and very beautiful daughter, Princess Zuri, but in Treeland, daughters are not expected to reign.
A struggle of wills and wits ensues between Zuri and her father and the age old patriarchal traditions that he represents. This tale is at once traditional and current, conventional and unconventional, modern and post-modern, existential but optimistic. Treeland: The Land of Laughter is a novel intended for young people, but readers of all ages will also enjoy it.
Author: The author, Mkama Mwijarubi, has been writing stories from an early age. His first juvenile story, titled Mbulabesi was published in 2001; Treeland is his second story.
Publisher: Mkuki Na Nyota www.mkukinanyota.com
The Best is Yet to Come, by Asungushe B. Kayombo
2009 Burt Award for African Literature - 2nd place
Diama Mwamba is an orphan girl. She has completed primary school and wants to continue with secondary education, but has no one to pay the school fees for her. Her mother is dead, her father ran away to the city after she was born, and has never returned. Her best friend in the village, a girl called Amanda, who is an albino, advises her to soldier on and never lose hope in spite of her dire straits.
The Best is Yet to Come depicts Daima’s travel and travails as she attempts to cope with the harsh realities confronting her in the alien city; her experience in boarding school, her love relationship with Kelvin, a fellow student; her “reunion” with her father and her dear friend Amanda. The story ends with Daima’s election as the new president of the student’s council.
Author: Asungushe B. Kayombo works with EDCTP Women’s Health Project in Mwanza, Tanzania. This is his first novel.
Publisher: E&D Vision Publishing http://www.edvisionpublishing.co.tz/
A Hero’s Magic, by Ambani A. Guyi
2009 Burt Award for African Literature - 3rd place
Following the death of his father Robert, Uleo, alias ‘Shamra Shamra’, has to leave school to fend for the family. He becomes a fisherman, is caught in a tempest, ends up stranded on an isolated island inhabited by monsters. He manages to escape and returns home after a stay in Uganda. This is just one of his adventures in this gripping novel about Uleo who refused to lie down and die despite fate’s tricks on him.
Author: Ambani Guyi teaches Business Communication at Mzumbe University. For over twenty years he has trained young adults to be pastors, teachers, bankers and accountants in East and Central Africa. He loves philosophy, reading and sports. He lives in Morogoro with his wife Stella.
Publisher: Readit Books Ltd.
