Swahili literature

Swahili literature is literature written in the Swahili language, particularly by Swahili people of the East African coast and the neighboring islands. It may also refer to literature written by people who write in the Swahili language. It is an offshoot of the Bantu culture.^[1]

The first literary works date back to the beginning of the 18th century, when all Swahili literature was written in Arabic script.^[2] Jan Knappert considered the translation of the Arabic poem Hamziya from the year 1652 to be the earliest Swahili written text. In the second half of the 19th century, European missionaries and scholars of African languages introduced the Latin script for writing the Swahili language.