Stories on the sons of Zanzibar

Yesterday afternoon I gave the workshop participants a cultural feature story assignment, where there had the chance to choose from three different options, all with a touch to Zanzibar. One was to explain, who was Freddie Mercury and what was his connection with Zanzibar. The other was to explain, who is Abdulrazak Gurnah and to tell about his books. The third option was to search for information about the Sauti za Busara music festival that started here yesterday evening and to tell about the programme.

For the stories on the legendary rock musician Freddie Mercury, originally Farrokh Bulsara, a son of Stone Town, Zanzibar, see what Ali Mbarouk, Mohammed Othman and Zaituni Makwali have produced. And if you want, you can also click on the play button on the YouTube video below to watch Freddie Mercury performing “We are the champions” live in panties only.



About Abdulrazak Gurnah, the world-famous Zanzibari author and professor of literature at University of Kent, UK, you can go to see the briefing in Kiswahili by Salha Mohammed Ali, news reporter at TVZ. I you want to read the books themselves, I really recommend the beautiful novel Desertion.

For Sauti za Busara, see the Kiswahili posting by Haji Nassor, TVZ reporter from Chake Chake, Pemba. You can also go to the Sauti za Busara website itself to read even more.