May Lenna Balisidya Matteru (May 10, 1947 – December 27, 1987) was a Tanzanian author writing in the

Swahili language Swahili, also known as as it is referred to endonym and exonym, in the Swahili language, is a Bantu languages, Bantu language originally spoken by the Swahili people, who are found primarily in Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique (along the East Af ...

. She was born in

Dodoma Dodoma ( in Gogo), officially Dodoma City (''Jiji Kuu la Dodoma'', in Swahili), is the capital city of Tanzania. With a population of 765,179, it is also the administrative capital of both Dodoma Municipal Council and the entire Dodoma R ...

and attended

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Work ...

and

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

there. Balisidya received a BA from the University of East Africa at Dar es Salaam in 1970 and a MA in oral literature from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1978. She obtained her

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in African literature from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

in November 1987. From 1977 to 1987, she was a lecturer in the Kiswahili department of the University of Dar es Salaam. In 1971, she was elected to the Swahili National Council of Tanzania; she served two terms as vice-chairman of the council. Balisidya died at the age of 40 from cancer.

Selected works

Source: * ''Shida'' ("Hardships"), novel * ''Ayubu'' ("Job"), play * ''Tujifunze Kusoma'' ("Let's learn to read"), children's book

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balisidya, May 1947 births 1987 deaths University of Dar es Salaam alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni Academic staff of the University of Dar es Salaam Tanzanian women writers Swahili-language writers